


Last Chance to Feel Human

by orphan_account



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Dubious Science, Eldritch Abomination Kevin, Established Relationship, Gore, M/M, Welcome to Night Vale - Freeform, eldritch abominations all round, wtnv - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 11:11:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 51,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4826942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Is this a good omen or bad omen?” Carlos asks, thinking he already knows the answer. Cecil surprises him, which, he realises, is becoming somewhat of a routine. </p><p>“Neither. Just an omen," Cecil says, quietly. </p><p> </p><p>In which people are disappearing from their beds, Carlos is NOT superstitious, and there are no such thing as angels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A fic which started as a short thing, got completely out of hand and has been eating my life for a really long time now. The title is taken from ‘Autoclave’ by the immortal Mountain Goats.
> 
> Also I should probably say that I don’t own any of Welcome to Night Vale’s characters or other intellectual property, this is a not-for-profit work of fan fiction and also a labour of love.

 

 

_“Dear Listeners, as you may you have noticed, for the past several nights in Night Vale a loud and mysterious chorus of bugles, or similar brass instruments, has been heard. Nobody is sure exactly where these sounds are coming from, but Luanna Bo, a student at the Night Vale College of Agriculture and Palmistry, has noted that the noises become slightly gentler for a short time if you lie on the grass with a carbonated beverage, watching time fly by, metaphorically, and shooting the breeze, literally. With a flare gun. More on this story as it occours.”_

*     *     * 

The bugles wake Cecil up again that night. They pull him from bottomless dreams about, he thinks dimly, a childhood which wasn’t his own. He stays lying in bed for a long time, listening to the metallic catcalls and wondering lazily if he should try soundproof his bedroom until the bugles - or whatever they are - go away. He closes his eyes, and tries to pull the dream back over himself like a blanket. 

A blanket which is whipped off him by the furious buzzing of his doorbell. He sits up, and rubs his eyes, half-hoping he had imagined it, but then, again, the doorbell.

“Ugh, what now?” He mutters, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, but not actually getting up. Opening the door in the middle of the night, even in Night Vale, is a pretty dumb thing to do. The buzzing stops, eventually, and Cecil lies back down, closes his eyes, and tries to convince himself that all he can hear is a quiet, comforting lullaby. He almost succeeds, until a sharp crackle comes from his intercom, and then: 

“-hotwire anything since high school, this is absolutely ridic- Hello? Cecil? Cecil, can you hear me? You can’t actually be sleepingthrough this-” 

Cecil jumps out of bed, runs down the echoing stairwell of his apartment in his bare feet and opens the front door in a matter of seconds. He finds Carlos standing awkwardly just outside the door, a stripy, knitted scarf wrapped tightly around his neck, bruises under his eyes, hair an elegant mess. He stumbles backwards slightly, making a surprised “Oof!” as Cecil barrels into him for a bear hug. Cecil breathes in his unique Carlos smell, something rich like freshly turned earth, and something sweet like ripe fruit.

“I missed you,” he says brightly, pulls away to start fussing with Carlos’s hair, straightening it out and flattening it where it stands up at the back. Carlos frowns, eyes sweeping around the empty street, but he allows it. 

“We saw each other yesterday. And you know how I feel about public displays of affection, Cecil. We’ve talked about this.”

“Sorry. I forget. And also I don’t care.” 

“I know,” Carlos says curtly, and Cecil pulls away, holding his hands above head innocently. 

“Alright, Mr.Grumpy-Pants, whatever you want,” he says, teasingly. Carlos looks down at his feet, and rubs his eyes.

“I didn’t say you had to stop,” he mutters, and Cecil happily goes back to his hair, which is getting longer again, long enough to need tucking behind his ears. Carlos closes his eyes, still frowning slightly. 

“I’m sorry. I’m just really tired. And I’m also sorry for vandalising your apartment’s speaker system to wake you up. I didn’t know what else to do. You weren’t answering your cell phone,” he adds, irritated.

“Sorry about that,” Cecil says, watching as Carlos deftly works on putting the speaker system back together. “That new intern I got last week, Aziz, thought it would be a fun idea to use my phone to take a picture under the bottom of station management’s door, so needless to say, I need to get another one. And a new phone, too.” 

Carlos laughs once, a single “Ha!”, and slots the reassembled speaker system back to place next to the slip of paper marked _Cecil Palmer - NVCR._ “Okay, but please get in a new one quickly. I don’t like not being able to contact you quickly.” 

“Wow. And I thought you didn’t like public displays of affection.” 

“I don’t. That wasn’t - it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to say. It’s a perfectly normal thing to want to be able to contact someone with whom you have a - an emotional attachment quickly, to ascertain that they’re not dead, or, or otherwise compromised.” 

“It’s alright, Spock, I wasn’t questioning your logic.” 

“You - stop distracting me!” Carlos says, waving his hands in the night air. He jumps violently at the sharp report of a gunshot somewhere in the next street. Behind the row of houses facing Cecil’s apartment a shower of red sparks shoots up into the air, bathing them both in alien, red light. A few seconds later the wailing of the bugles retreats, suddenly and dramatically, until it’s just a faint whine. 

“It actually worked. How fascinating.” Carlos’s eyes are fixed on the remaining red sparks, and his hands move unconsciously towards his left jacket pocket, where Cecil knows he usually keeps an illicit notepad and pencil. He catches himself, and looks quickly over at Cecil, guilty. 

“I’m really sorry I woke you. I didn’t think you could actually be sleeping through Beethoven’s 5th performed by Satan’s symphony orchestra,” he says, throwing a slightly sour glance over his shoulder. 

“Beethoven’s 5th what?” Cecil says, intrigued. He rubs the last of the sleep out of his eyes, trying to shake himself fully awake. 

“Beethoven’s 5th,” Carlos sounds surprised. “You know, the symphony? Beethoven? No?”

Cecil scratches his head thoughtfully. “Does the original rendition feature or have any association with trombones, by any chance?” 

“Um.” Carlos cants his head to the side slightly, thinking, this clearly being a conversation he had ever anticipated having before. 

“Probably?” He hazards. 

“That would explain it then.” Cecil says, sounding satisfied. 

“Fascinating,” Carlos murmurs, staring at Cecil for a moment, and Cecil notices that his fingertips twitch towards his notepad again. “I just came here because - the bugles. I’d hoped they would just go away, but it’s been more than fourty eight hours since I slept for longer than fifteen minutes, so I figured it was time to try and find out what was making all the noise. I assumed you’d be awake too but...” He peters off, sounding bashful. 

Cecil shakes his head enthusiastically. “No, no, it’s okay, I was already awake. The bugles woke me up from a very strange dream just before you started knocking.”

“Oh. Good,” Carlos says, surprised, and somewhat relieved. He takes out his notepad and starts scribbling things down.

“Let me just go get dressed,” Cecil says.

“Okay. I’ll be in the car,” Carlos says, slightly absently. Cecil turns, and bounds back up the stairs. He throws on a tunic (dark, following Carlos’s lead, as he is the professional here) and splashes some cold water on his face, puts on a jacket, takes it off again, puts it on again, gets out the front door and unlocks it again to throw the jacket onto the sofa, and is walking across the front lawn to where Carlos is parked in the middle of the street, just as the bugles begin to return in full sound. He ducks into the passenger seat, puts on his seatbelt reflexively, and then looks over at Carlos. 

Carlos is holding something in his hands, a vaguely rectangular block of metal with various antennae and sensors sticking out of it at odd angles. Cecil can see inside of it through an open panel, revealing an interior full of what looks like crude crayon drawings on paper of computer chips, which are winking with lights and connected with real wires. Carlos jabs at it with his finger in seemingly random places, with that furrow of concentration in his brow. He says nothing for a long time. 

“I like your scarf,” Cecil says, just to break the silence. Carlos looks at Cecil in surprise, as if he had forgotten he was there, and then down at the stripy, christmas tree green and buttermilk white scarf wrapped around his neck. It looks hand knitted.

“Oh. Thank you. Lejosephine gave it to me last week when I went round to her house. She’s a really sweet person. Kept calling me Carlos the conquistador,” he murmurs, a small, thoughtful smile on his lips. Cecil glances over at that smile, which is soft and private, and feels something in his chest squirm, like a worm inside of an apple.

“Is Lejosephine a scientist too?” He asks, and of course it comes out all wrong, sounds petulant and whiney. Of course it does. Carlos lets out a startled laugh. 

“No! No, I’m talking about Old Woman Josie. That’s her full name, Lejosephine. I went round to ask her some questions about the town and ended up staying the whole day. She’s a really lovely old lady. Full of great stories. And, incidentally, some really, _really_ dirty jokes.”

“Oh! I see,” Cecil says. He sits, and stares at his own hands for a while, contemplating his own stupidity. Carlos is muttering strings of complicated words mixed with Spanish profanity as he gets more and more frustrated with the machine. 

“It was working before,” he tuts, pulling a panel off the back and holding it upside down, frowning when a single screw comes falling out onto his face. 

“What is it meant to do?” Cecil asks, thinking it looks slightly like one of the control panels in his booth at the station.

“Sorry, did you say something?” 

“What does it do?” 

“Well, when the others and I first got here, one of the first things we noticed was that Night Vale is full of invisible, nearly undetectable energy lines. We ran a few scans on a number of different frequencies, and this entire area is just a _swamp_ of energy patterns. Seriously, you should have seen the readout, it looked like a million spiderwebs, all tangled together. Anyway, this morning I ran a sample of the trumpeting noise through our scanners, and the frequency which the noise is on corresponded perfectly to one of these energy patterns, and when I did some more digging, it turns out that whatever is emitting that particular energy trace only appeared on our scanners three nights ago.”

“That’s the night the bugles started up, right?” 

“Exactly! Exactly. So, I manufactured a portable version of our energy scanner, which is this thing right here, and hopefully it should be able to follow the energy signature corresponding to the noise. But I don’t know why it won’t - aha!” He cries triumphantly. The scanner lets out a flurry of bleeping, squawking sounds, and then spits out a length of violet paper. Carlos tears it off, and starts reading it eagerly. He descends into confused silence. 

“What is - it’s -” He looks crestfallen. 

“Can I see?” Cecil asks.

“It’s just a bunch of squiggly circles,” Carlos says dismissively, turning back to his instrument and poking it, looking kind of at a loss. 

“Can I see it anyway?” Cecil asks, holding out a hand. Carlos looks at him dubiously for a moment, but then shrugs and hands it over, turning back to his machine as Cecil scans the  paper.

“Drive east until the spires of the sand-waste cathedral come into view, then turn left at every possible opportunity, until you reach the place where neither left nor right have meaning,” Cecil recites slowly, like a priest intoning mass. Carlos looks at him disbelievingly, then grabs the piece of paper out of his hand again. 

“How?” He demands. Cecil shrugs, trying not to look smug. 

“All radio presenters in Night Vale must be fluent in conversational written Italian.”

“But - that’s not Italian! I’ve been to Italy, Cecil - I know _Latin_ , and believe me, that is _not_ Italian,” Carlos says, turning the paper upside down, then looking at the back. 

“Yes it is,” Cecil says calmly. 

“No, it’s not!” 

“Yes it is.” 

“No, it really-” Outside, a shower of blue sparks fly up in to the air, and immediately, the howling of the bugles hikes up in volume almost unbearably. 

“I told them not to use blue flares!” Cecil groans, and Carlos starts his car, yelling, “Okay, Italian it is!” 

He turns the car around, and takes off down the street, headed out of town. The bugles get even louder as they near the outskirts, until Cecil thinks his head might actually burst from the noise, and the fear and excitement and the lingering exhaustion. Eventually, they see red sparks shooting up from somewhere in the vicinity of Big Rico’s, and the caterwauling mercifully dampens. They drive in silence for a while, Carlos still frowning in concentration, Cecil fiddling curiously with the scanner. Carlos says something, just as they pass by Dark Owl Records, and Cecil notices impassively that it seems to be on fire.

“Cecil?” 

“Huh?” 

“I asked you what you dreamt about. You said the bugles woke you up from dreaming.” 

“Oh. Well, let me think about that for a moment.” 

Cecil has always been able to remember his dreams perfectly. He flicks through an imaginary filing cabinet in his head, pulls out a sheet of paper with vividly coloured drawings on it.

“Yeah, that’s right. I was dreaming about somebody else’s childhood.”

Carlos says nothing, but the silence is encouraging, patient.

“I remember my skin being clammy, and young, and dark with freckles. I am in a swimming pool. The pool is full of people languidly trying to breaststroke backwards in time, back into their youth. I stand at the foot of the stairs to the diving boards, and look up at and through the towering structure, like a human sacrifice gazing out at a peat bog. Afraid. Reverent. I begin to climb. My feet make soft, wet noises on the linoleum steps as I go higher, and higher, and higher. Not once do I pause. Not once do I allow it. 

I climb. Time ceases to hold any meaning for me, and the noise in the echoing room becomes strangely muffled, as if I have passed through a cloud layer, have passed through the ceiling and must surely now be standing in the sky. But I am not standing in the sky. I am at the top diving board. When I had imagined it, before, there had been a spring board, but there is only a short platform, like a protruding tongue. I peer down the gaping esophagus of the long drop. The languid people so far below are...no longer swimming. They are staring. They are staring at _me_. I cannot see their faces from this height. I am remote. I simultaneously feel very very big, and very very small.  I stand on the edge for a few moments more, savouring some feeling, some fleeting emotion I do not have a name for. I have to jump. There are other people coming up the stairs. I have to _fall_ -” 

He snaps out the dream as the car takes a sharp left, and Cecil narrowly avoids smacking the side of his head against the window. 

“Sorry! Sorry,” Carlos says hastily, spinning the wheel maniacally, trying to straighten them out as they veer left again. “The cathedral caught me by surprise. It said to take every left, right?”

“Yeah, every possible left.” 

“But - won’t that just take us round in circles? Maybe the scanner is broken after all.”

“Did you make it?” 

“Yeah,” Carlos says, preoccupied with turning the car left down alleyways and onto deserted pavements, into increasingly unfamiliar parts of town. He takes a left which leads them to the mouth of a large, redbrick tunnel neither of them has ever seen before.

“Then it’s right,” Cecil murmurs simply. Carlos says nothing as they drive into the tunnel, which, worryingly, seems to be getting narrower, but Cecil thinks he senses quiet satisfaction with the compliment.

“You’re an excellent storyteller, by the way,” Carlos says thoughtfully, after a while. “How do you remember all the details like that? I can never remember my dreams,” he says, frustrated. Cecil shrugs shyly.

“I just do. Always have been able to. My first dream was about the colour maroon.” 

The car exits the tunnel, and they screech to a halt. Cecil looks up. 

“Oh my.” 

They are, inexplicably, in the middle of the desert. Behind them, there is no sign of Night Vale, or anything at all, apart from the mouth of a brick tunnel, which slopes into the ground, and then miles and miles of sand. They glance at each other, and, making a silent decision, simultaneously get out of the car. 

“Of course. Oh, of _course_ ,” Cecil says, softly. They are standing at the foot of a tall, looming sand-dune, which in the darkness looks like a static wave. On the top is a line of five or so hulking animal silhouettes, their eyes glowing like headlamps. Carlos can make out thick fur, huge paws, blunt snouts icicled with short, sharp teeth. Their heads are raised toward the moon like wolves, but they’re _not_ wolves. 

“Bears?” Carlos asks in a whisper, transfixed, bewildered.

“Bears,” Cecil mutters in agreement. “Come on.”

They start edging their way up the sand dune, and when they reach the top, Carlos sees that the bears are enormous, each one the size of a small truck. Their cocoa-coloured fur is criss-crossed with broad, dripping lines of white, like war-paint, and in the cool desert air their enormous bodies are steaming. They pay no attention to the two people who have appeared in their midst.  
  
“What are they?” Carlos whispers - something about being close to the animals makes him feel like he should whisper. Up-close, the wailing issuing from the bears’ cavernous mouthes is somehow much quieter, and strangely metallic, still like a chorus of bugles, but like a chorus of bugles being played under water, or through a tannoy system. Actual melody is discernible too, something slow, and deep, and very, very old. 

"Clarion bears,” Cecil says in a hushed voice. “They’re travelling omens. The most potent omen in Night Vale literature. I didn’t realise - Fitzpatrick describes them as more of a panpipe sound...” He peters off. 

“Good omen or bad omen?” Carlos says, thinking he already knows the answer. Cecil surprises him, which, he realises, is becoming somewhat of a routine. 

“Neither. Just an omen,” Cecil murmurs, taking a few steps towards the bear closest to them. He pauses, and reaches out a hand. For a moment, Carlos is sure he’s going to touch it, but he stops, fingertips just a few inches short from the animal’s pelt. Cecil retracts his hand, and looks over his shoulder at Carlos with a strange, troubled expression Carlos doesn’t recognise. 

“Something big is going to happen,” he says, quietly, turning back to look at the bears again. “Something important.” 

Carlos steps forward and joins him, closer to the strange animals. “They’re actually quite beautiful,” he says, after a moment, and he means it. There’s a kind of gravity to them, something elemental, totemic. The air around them is filled with the smell of their hides, and the cooling sand, and, inexplicably, pinecones. Carlos finds himself gripped with the same impulse Cecil had been, to reach out and touch, only he doesn’t stop himself. 

The effect is immediate. As soon as Carlos’s fingertips brush the bear’s side, the animals go silent, and with a great swishing sound their enormous lighthouse eyes all turn to look at Carlos. There is a pure and silent second, like the moment just before the winner of a competition is announced, and then in one swift movement, the bears throw back their heads, open their mouths, and bellow out mushroom clouds of phosphorescent smoke, accompanied by a deafening, resonant chord. Both of them stumble backwards onto the sand, coughing and blinking tears out of their eyes. When Carlos’s sight returns, he sees that the Clarion bears have vanished, and that both of them are covered head to toe in sand. Cecil coughs wheezily, and ruffles his hair, and then takes his glasses off, leaving a clear stripe around his eyes. Carlos burst out laughing, and Cecil squints at him with the expression of a person who has opened the door to their home to find that every surface has been covered in a thin layer of cream cheese, and it just makes Carlos laugh even harder. 

“What? What’s funny?” Cecil says, trying to clean his glasses but only succeeding in making them sandier. “Why are you laughing?” He asks, starting to snicker himself. Carlos can’t seem to stop laughing, sides aching and his eyes stinging painfully. 

“Quit laughing!” Cecil says, and he picks up a handful of sand and throws it at Carlos, which effectively stops his hysterics.

There has been a haze of orange and pink building on the skyline for some time and now, suddenly, the sun bursts over the flat horizon, like an egg being cracked into a blue bowl. Carlos watches as Cecil squints at the rising sun like he knows what he’s seeing, but can’t quite put a name to it. New light is thrown on him - or rather, to Carlos at least, it seems to go right through him, making him translucent and papery, like a ghost. Carlos’s laugher leaves him. He thinks he can see the silhouettes of the arteries in Cecil’s neck, and of the veins and tendons in his hands. As Cecil hauls himself up from the sand and brushes himself off as best he can, Carlos’s head spins with how suddenly alien he looks. Cecil turns, and holds out a hand to help Carlos up. Carlos shakes his head roughly, trying to physically dislodge the thought from his brain. He moves to take Cecil’s outstretched hand, but then recoils with a shocked “Ah!”

“What?” Cecil says in alarm, turning to look behind him as if expecting to see a snake storm, or maybe an angry mob.

“Cecil, your-” Carlos scrambles up off the floor, ignoring the sand that falls out of his clothes like miniature avalanches. He backs away.

“What!” Cecil says, looking positively alarmed now. “Carlos, what is it?” 

“Your tattoos,” Carlos breathes, staring at a space above Cecil’s head “They’re - _flying_.” 

“What? Oh.” 

The familiar navy blue lines and interlocking eyes that usually pattern Cecil’s arms and shoulders and chest are floating in the desert air, undulating and waving, coiling and uncoiling, the eyes are all blinking in syncopation. 

“Yeah, they do that sometimes when they get bored,” Cecil says, airily, but seeing the expression on Carlos’s face, he makes a quiet tutting sound, and the floating shadows spiral downwards and rejoin his skin. Carlos watches speechlessly as Cecil rolls the sleeves of his tunic down over his arms, although the gentle swirling of his tattoos is still visible at his neck, and on the back of his hands. 

“And you never thought to tell me?” Carlos says, weakly. Cecil looks up at him in surprise. 

“Why? Is it important?” Cecil asks. Something about that response rubs Carlos the wrong way, and he bristles. 

“Of course it’s important!” He says. “Cecil, I’m a scientist. You _know_ I’m a scientist. You know I’m trying to find out what’s going on in this town, and you don’t think your tattoos just - just coming off your skin and flying around, like, actually _flying around_ , is important?” The anger in his tone takes them both by surprise. Carlos clears his throat, and in the sticky moment of silence, starts brushing sand and soot off his clothes. 

“I don’t remember where I got them,” Cecil says, suddenly. Carlos looks at him sharply. 

“You don’t remember where you got them,” he repeats, dryly. Cecil shakes his head, looking kind of sheepish. 

“I think they just sort of showed up one day. I do seem to remember them being smaller in the past though.” 

“And you’ve never questioned that. It doesn’t bother you that tattoos just - just appear on your skin! You don’t mind that?” Carlos says, incredulous.

Cecil blinks. “Should I?” 

“Yes!” Carlos shouts, throwing his arms up into the air. A minute ago he was laughing, but now, suddenly, he’s furious. “Yes, you should mind! Everyone should mind! The people here! Make! No! Sense! Oh, what’s that, the government has taken my whole family away and I won’t ever see them again? Oh, that’s okay, I did vote for them! Kinda! Oh, there’s a dog park which nobody is allowed into, and which, which swallowed like, ten people, and gives off some really worrying radiation, oh okay, let’s go watch a movie! Oh, what’s that, Hitomi? There’s a cat, floating in midair in the bathroom? Wow! Gee! Let’s adopt him! You just accept it all and move on blithely, because _nothing is ever wrong in Night Vale!”_ He yells the last part, and hears his voice bouncing crazily off the sand dunes: _Nothing is ever! Is ever! Night Vale! Vale! Wrong!_

Cecil is staring at him with a shocked expression, and all of the anger starts to bleed out of him like dirty water down a drain, leaving him exhausted, and deflated, and also slightly ashamed. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and sighs deeply. 

“Carlos, listen,” Cecil says earnestly. “I know it must be difficult for a scientist to see people not questioning everything. That’s just how-” 

“-how things are in Night Vale. I know,” Carlos finishes, kind of bitterly. “Yeah, I’m sorry too. Now come on, let’s get out of this place before something eats us.” 

They walk down the sand dune together in silence, towards Carlos’s car, and the opening of the tunnel, which is the only manmade structure in sight. A sandstorm is gathering in the distance. Carlos tries not to think about what _that_ might be an omen for.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> any comments and kudos you feel like giving are really really appreciated xoxo


	2. Chapter 2

Carlos is quiet for most of the drive back towards Night Vale. Cecil throws furtive glances over at him every minute or so, holding the scanning device and picking at its wires and paper circuits nervously. He thinks, with a dry throat, of the way that Carlos had looked at him when he explained that his tattoos came to life sometimes. Cecil remembers the horror there on his face. Horror, disgust, fear. What an awful thing it would be if Carlos were afraid of him.

“Carlos?” He asks tentatively. The piercing electric lights of the tunnel flash past them in fuzzy lines.

“Hmm?” 

“Are still you angry at me?” 

Carlos lets out a sigh through his nose. “No. No, I’m not angry at you, Cecil. I mean I, I experienced some anger, yes, and it was related to and caused, in part, by you, but I never meant to direct it _at_ you. I think I'm more frustrated than angry. I feel.... but yeah, mostly, I’m - I was just angry that you didn’t tell me about...that.” He mutters the last part, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of Cecil’s tattoos. “And other...things of that nature.” 

“Oh. Oh, okay.”

“Hey, can you promise me something?” Carlos says.

“What?” 

“If there are any more weird things, you’ll tell me. Okay?” 

Cecil hesitates. “What constitutes as a weird thing in your mind?” 

“Oh, you know. People going about covert activities in the middle of the night. Unexplainable markings appearing on your skin, domestic animals defying the laws of nature. That sort of thing.” 

Cecil nods seriously, misinterpreting the humour in Carlos’s voice as sincerity. 

“Got it,” he says. He makes a strange, shivering movement, and then Carlos nearly crashes the car when he sees Cecil’s tattoos snake up to his palms from under his shirt sleeves, and then come apart from his skin again. They slither away airbourne through the open window, blindingly fast, like snakes, or smoke, and vanish. 

“What the hell, Cecil!” 

“What?” Cecil blinks innocently. “How do you think I always get the news so fast on the show? They’re my eyes on the ground.” 

 A moment later, the inky shadows whip back in through the window. Carlos feels one of them brush his cheek, and sees a brief vision of a darkened street, a disembodied grimace, the sound of the last few dregs of a drink being slurped through a straw. The shadows wrap around Cecil’s outstretched fingertips, and slither back under his clothes. Carlos manages to keep his eyes on the road only with difficulty.  Cecil’s eyes go blank, and he stares into the distance as though seeing something very different to what Carlos is.  

“Hmm. Nothing that weird to report. It’s a quiet night. Literally, everybody is asleep because the bears have finally gone. That woman who stands behind the Korean takeout and tries to get people to sell internal organs nobody has ever heard of is doing her thing. Steve Carlsberg is...I, I don’t know what to call that, but it looks unholy. And Hitomi has hung up some mice on elastic strings in the station bathroom for Koschek, awwww, isn’t that shweet?” 

“Yes. That’s very...shweet, Cecil,” Carlos says, perturbed. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t just tell me about th - _fuck!_ ” 

The car screeches to a halt, just narrowly avoiding slamming into the wooden door which has materialised in the middle of the tunnel. Carlos has thrown one of his arms over Cecil’s chest in a reflexive movement. He pulls it back slowly now, mind racing as he tries to work out when _that_ became instinctive. They stare at the door in silence for a few tense seconds, hearts beating like kettledrums.

“Maybe we took a wrong turning?” Cecil whispers. Carlos’s eyebrows have drawn together.

“It’s a straight tunnel. No other exits,” he says in an undertone. He starts unbuckling his seatbelt, but Cecil grabs his arm, whispers “No, don’t!” so sharply that Carlos retracts his hand from the door handle.

“Turn the car around, we’ll find another way back,” he hisses desperately. 

“There is no other way back, it’s an up-and-down straight tunnel.” He starts moving towards the door again, and now Cecil sounds genuinely frightened. 

“You can’t go outside Carlos! That’s not - that’s not how things work in Night Vale. Bad things happen to people who get involved in things they don’t understand!” 

They stare at each other for a few tense seconds. Carlos worries his bottom lip with his teeth unsurely, and then decision hardens his features. He prises Cecil’s fingers from his wrist. 

“I’m not from Night Vale,” he says, gently, getting out of the car and pacing slowly towards the door. He gets no further than two steps when Cecil appears, hovering next to him and positively radiating anxiety. They face the door, which, on closer inspection, is emanating an unsettling, green glow. 

“What do you think it is?” Carlos whispers. Almost as a reply, the scanner which Cecil is still clutching to his chest lets out flurry of desperate beeping and squawking. The machine, which Cecil holds out at arms length in alarm, begins frantically spitting out slip after slip after of paper from several ports. Cecil catches one of slips of paper in one hand as it floats above his head. 

“Leave immediately. Leave, and forget.” He reads in a whisper, gulping audibly in the ensuing silence. “Carlos, I really think we should go home.”

“But why?” Carlos murmurs, ignoring Cecil’s hand pulling at his elbow. He takes the scanner from Cecil, and pockets it, still staring bewitched at the door. “What don’t they want us to see?” 

Carlos takes those last few steps, and after a split second of hesitation, his fingertips wrap around the dull brass handle, and turn. The door swings open forcefully, with a bang, and a great gust of wind blows out at them. Cecil thinks he hears screaming in the wind, or maybe hysterical laughing. The wind abates abruptly a few seconds later, leaving them windswept, Cecil’s glasses lopsided, and Carlos’s scarf blown up into his face. They are left staring into an unyielding darkness. In the distance is a faint, greenish glow. 

They say nothing, but when Cecil hand brushes against Carlos’s, he takes hold of it mindlessly. The fingers cling to him almost as tightly as he clings to them as they step over the threshold, into the suffocating darkness. The door swings closed behind them in another gust of wind. 

“What now?” Cecil’s disembodied voice is a whisper, but it peels like a bell in the silence of the black space. Carlos squeezes the clammy hand which is interlocked with his in what he hopes is an encouraging way, and they begin walking towards the green light in the distance. He tries to take mental notes about the temperature of the room (chilly and windless) and the feel of the floor (soft and slightly tacky, like mud, and silent) but mostly, he is distracted by the heat of Cecil’s clammy hand, and the shallow breathing coming from somewhere just above him, to his right. As the green light gets gradually nearer and nearer, he becomes aware of a faint, melodic sound. It takes him a few seconds to realise that Cecil is singing something to himself, nearly silently. The sound rumbles, like it’s coming from deep down in his chest. 

Cecil finishes the song, grows quiet. He wonders, briefly, who taught it to him. He doesn’t remember that, either. Carlos’s fingers tighten almost painfully around his as they near the green glow, which turns out to be light spilling out from underneath another door. They reach it, and stop. This door has no markings on it at all. The only way that they can discern it from the darkness at all is by the light that spills out from the crack underneath it.

This time, it is Cecil’s hand which opens the door. Carlos can just make it out, bird-like and arched, gripping the doorknob and twisting it carefully. This door doesn’t open in a rush like the last, but smoothly, and with no resistance. Light spills out, blinding them both. 

“It’s a lab,” Carlos says quietly, stepping through the door into the white medical lights.  The floor changes into familiar click-clicking linoleum. The room is spacious, but low ceilinged. There are several large, glass tubes the size of coffins bolted to the wall, containing various liquids, red, yellow, black, clear. Carlos can see his own face reflected bug eyed in all of them. The centre of the room is dominated by a scratched metal medical table with a glaring white light overhead light. A tray of wicked looking medical instruments rests on it, and a curious array of bone-like shapes, ribs and vertebrae and pelvis, but made out of drying clay. Next to that is a large, neat pile of yellowish leather, and then an old fashioned sewing machine with clear thread fed into it. Carlos examines various labelled jars on a shelf across the room. One is labelled FRECKLES. A jar of grey paste is labelled FUR STIMULANT. Another HIDE TREATMENT. Another, full of dark purple liquid, BIRTH MARKS. 

“Bizarre,” Carlos murmurs. He flips open his notebook to the front, makes a few cursory notes, and then puts it back in his pocket. He takes down the jar labelled FRECKLES, and opens it, and finds it full of tiny, brown flecks, as thin as tracing paper. Meanwhile, the door which they came through clicks shut quietly. The sound startles Cecil, who turns around, and jumps violently.

“Carlos-” He manages to choke out. 

“What?” Carlos sees Cecil’s expression, and turns to look at the wall where the door is lodged, the wall they couldn’t see when they first walked in. He drops the jar, and it goes bouncing across the floor, spraying freckles as it does.

On the wall, next to the door, is a huge, thin frame the length and breadth of a small truck. Displayed on it in gory, scientific bluntness are all the components of an adult human body, taken to pieces, cured, and pinned painstakingly onto the board. Intestines have been laid out in neat, spaciously economic rows. There are cross sections of organs, slivers of heart and lung and tongue. A ringlet of limp, dirty blonde hair. A chain of vertebrae. A single thumb. Right at the top, in pride of place, is a single green eye. Each piece has been labelled in a slanted, spiky language. On the floor in front of it are five bell jars on pedestals, containing a ribcage, a hand and also a foot, both with skin still attached, a pelvis and finally, a shaved head. The left side of the face has been stripped of flesh, but the right side still has half a mouth, grimacing, half a nose, nostril flared, and another eye, which gazes dully out at the room. The skin is pinched and dry and the colour of gruel.

Carlos feels bile rising at the back of his throat. He grips Cecil’s arm, which is shaking lightly, and starts pulling him dumbly towards the exit, but before they even reach it, the door on the other side of the room bursts open. 

A freezing wind blows straight through them both, as four hooded figures surge into the room through the open door. Carlos feels the air rush out of his lungs as two of them tackle him to the floor, and he hears a crash accompanied by a shout of surprise somewhere next to him as the other two do the same to Cecil. The linoleum is gritty and cold against his cheek, and he tries to turn his head, but the hand pressed against the back of his head grinds downwards, forcing a grunt out of him.

With his cheek pressed against the ground, Carlos can see very little of what happens next. Through the buzzing in his ears, he hears the door opening again, and then the sound of footsteps, more than one pair, marching in unison. A pair of immaculate white boots pass by his face, and then another pair a moment later, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees the two owners - women, white uniformed, dark skinned - set down something heavy looking. The hand on the back of his head eases its pressure momentarily. He instinctively raises his neck, just enough time to catch a glimpse of an ornate red and blue sedan chair, and the expressionless china masks on the two women who had carried it in. There is a moment of silence, and then the door of the sedan chair clicks open. 

Carlos doesn’t dare to breathe as a leg the size of a small chest of drawers emerges out of the sedan chair, followed shortly by another. He hears heavy breathing, and a curious metallic jangling sound accompanying the legs’ movements. Twisting his head against the floor, he sees a pair of enormous, jet-black boots, and on their heels, glinting silver spurs. The feet pause, for a moment, their owner apparently taking in the room, which is filling with a pungent, iron-filings smell. The scanner in Carlos’ pocket is digging painfully into his hip. He feels the hooded figure which is holding his head down shift slightly, and he makes a split second decision. Twisting abruptly, he sinks his elbow into the hooded figure’s midsection, gratified by the muffled sound of surprise and then pain as the hand on the back of his head retracts. It’s just enough time for Carlos to look up at the newcomer, and what he catches a glimpse of is potentially the largest human being he has ever seen. Hugely tall, hugely fat, hugely muscular, the man peering down at him with an inscrutable expression makes Carlos think of a bull standing on two legs. Just before the hand returns to the back of his head, slamming him down onto the linoleum hard enough to make his vision swim with black phosphenes, Carlos sees, on the breast pocket of the man’s black leather jacket, a shiny golden five-point star.

Another moment of silence, and then a voice from somewhere high above him says, 

“Let him up. No, not that one. Palmer.” 

Cecil, whose face had been turning a progressively more unhealthy shade of purple, suddenly feels the knee pressed between his shoulder blades vanish. He manages to suck in a lungful of air which makes his head spin, before hands are hauling him to stand upright. He yelps, more in surprise than in pain, as his left leg buckles underneath him, refusing to take his weight. He’s only saved from crashing back to the floor by the enormous, black-gloved hand which grabs him by the upper arm, steadying him as if he weighed hardly anything at all. 

Cecil and the Sheriff regard each other for a few seconds, the Sheriff with dark, blank eyes, Cecil not daring to look at the floor, where he can hear Carlos’ shallow breathing. Abruptly, the Sheriff’s broad, tan face cracks into an approximation of a grin. He squeezes Cecil’s arm before releasing it, and chuckles, slapping him hard on the back in a way that’s probably meant to feel fraternal. His laugher appalls. 

“Sheriff Anders. It’s good to see you again,” Cecil says warmly, voice smooth, calm and pleasant, even if Carlos can see the way his left leg is sticking out at an awkward angle, and, judging by the slight shake in his other leg, is hurting badly.  It’s the competent voice of a radio professional. Carlos, over the terror, feels an unexpected sudden surge of pride for Cecil just then, who looks as thin and as fragile as a pencil drawing on tracing paper when standing next to the Sheriff.

“Now. Now...now...now,” the Sheriff says, shaking his head ponderously and tucking his thumbs into his belt-loops. “Cecil Palmer, you ol’ devil,” he drawls. “Hows about you tell me what all this is about?” 

His tone sounds fatherly, playful almost, but there’s a nasty prickliness to it. He speaks to Cecil like a teacher might to a small child to whom they are saying, untruthfully, ‘I won’t be angry with you, promise, just tell me the truth.’ 

Sweat beading on his forehead, Cecil hazards a glance at the floor, where Carlos is still being held. His gut lurches at the sight of a bright smear of blood on the linoleum, but he schools his face into a rueful smile.

“I have to say, Sheriff, I am just _so embarrassed._ We were just driving back from investigating a story when your door just appeared in the middle of the tunnel, and gosh, I was just so excited by the scoop we just got - I couldn’t help myself. Carlos was all for turning the car around but - what can I say? I’m a journalist. Curiosity is in my blood. Literally.” 

There’s something different about Anders, Cecil thinks. His movements are awkward, puppet like. Normally when people stand still, they fidget or shift their weight from leg to leg, but Sheriff Anders just stands there, immobile, arms held out from his sides like a doll. 

“Is that so? And what did you find, in this... _scoop_ o’ yours?” The Sheriff asks, conversationally.

“We were investigating the bugling noise. It was clarion bears.”

“Really? That’s very...interesting. Never occoured to me, but it’s obvious now you say it. Fitzpatrick described it as more of a panpipe sound,” the Sheriff mutters, looking annoyed momentarily. “Well, that would explain why that goddamned door keeps appearin’ in random places. Spiritual happ’nins always mess with the instruments.” He somehow manages to drag the word out into more than five syllables. 

Anders pauses, and Carlos hears the meaty sound of him licking his lips, and then his voice grows soft, deadly. “Still doesn’t explain what you’re doin’ here, son. 

“Sir?” Cecil says, confused, but calm. 

“You’ve always been a smart one, Cecil. You ough’ to know better than go poking around in things that don’t concern you.” 

Cecil smiles wryly. “We all have our moments of madness, don’t we? I remember a story you told me a few years ago, when you asked a hooded figure what was under their hood.”

Sheriff Anders throws back his head and laughs a gargling laugh, seemingly pleased that Cecil remembered his story. 

“It turned to look at me, and by gawd, I could feel it boring holes straight through me. I’m just thankful it didn’t want to show me! Ain’t that right, ugly?” He says, to one of the hooded figures which had tackled Cecil to the floor, and is now hovering nearby. It doesn’t respond in any visible way, but Sheriff Anders pauses, as if listening, and then laughs heartily. 

“What a joker,” he says, turning back to Cecil, and sighing contentedly.

“I have to say, it’s interesting that you seem to be able to communicate with the hooded figures. I wasn’t aware that they were in the habit of...speaking,” Cecil says, sounding as though he is having to choose his words very carefully indeed. The Sheriff snorts. 

“Of course they speak, Cecil, what are you, a vegetable? They only speak to those who they choose to speak to, and I guess you just ain’t on the guest list.” 

“So, this lab,” Cecil says, conversationally. “It belongs to them?”

“As far as you’re concerned, son, this lab don’t exist.” The Sheriff hesitates for a moment, then adds, “But yes. If this place _were_ to exist, it would, in its hypothetical existence, belong to the hooded figures, in a fashion.” 

“And they’re...studying us? Am I right in saying that?” Cecil asks, sounding only mildly interested. “Judging by that, I mean.” He nods his head towards the framed human remains on the wall.

“I guess that’s what it looks like, huh.” Anders mutters, half to himself. “Yes, I suppose you could say they have a certain...investment in the town and its people.”

“And judging by how advanced these facilities are, I suppose that poor soul on the wall won’t be the last person to be sacrificed by the city council for this investment, am I right.” 

It’s not a question. For the first time now, the Sheriff looks nervous. He removes his hat with a huge, dustbin lid hand, and holds it to his chest in what is probably supposed to be a show of sincerity, but in reality just makes it look like he’s having a heart attack. 

“The hooded figures ain’t our enemies, Cecil. I swear to you, as protector of this fine town, that what has been done, has been done for the people of Night Vale. You’ve got to understand. We had no choice,” he says, tone suddenly strangely urgent. Something shifts in his face, his eyes lose their dispassionate film, and he speaks with a sense of urgency, as if sharing a terrible secret.  Anders leans forwards, and takes Cecil’s shoulders, speaking fast and low. 

“They’d never shown any interest in us before. But then - I don’t what happened, Cecil, but suddenly they were everywhere. Harvest failed this year, you remember, and they were offering us things, hands full of ripe fruit and vegetables and _grain,_ so much plenty, you ain’t never seen nothing like it. And what they wanted -” Anders gulps, eyes darting from side to side, a finger of perspiration dripping down his temple into his mouth, “It didn’t seem like much at first, they just wanted a look around my office, at my instruments, that’s all, but then they wanted more, things I couldn’t give, but then there was this _face,_ inside my head, and he looked, and he looked, and he _looked_ -” 

Anders’ strange speech is cut off sharply by the hand which lands on his shoulder. He looks down at the pale, hairless hand sitting on his shoulder like a tarantula, and his gaze rises it slowly towards the hooded face. Cecil notices for the first time how _tall_ the hooded figures are. Even Anders is standing in their shadow. The Sheriff’s face spasms, once, twice, and then falls slack again as he lets go of Cecil so forcefully that Cecil nearly flips the metal surgical table over when he grabs it for balance. The flicker of humanity which he had seen on the Sheriff’s face while he was speaking has vanished.

“Sebastian,” Cecil whispers, eyes wide, “What have they done to you?” 

The Sheriff seems to swell. His shoulders rise, his chest expands, and he grabs Cecil by the collar of his tunic with both pumpkin-sized hands, and starts shaking him backwards and forwards with violence. Cecil’s head lolls horribly on his neck as the Sheriff shouts in his face, nearly lifting him off the floor.

“We all have to make sacrifices, Cecil! To keep Night Vale safe! Nothing is free in this world. We take and we give. They gave. And then it was their right to take, and to take, and to take-” 

“Stop it, _stop it!”_ Carlos yells, struggling against the hooded figures holding him onto the floor. He manages to shake off the one holding his arms behind his back, and tries to struggle to his feet, but only ends up flat on his back, coughing from a blow he took in the stomach. Anders is staring at him as if he had forgotten about his entire existence, holding a dazed looking Cecil by the collar. Cecil’s face is flecked with blood, and more blood glistens on the Sheriff’s lower lip. He finally drops Cecil, and turns his bulk towards Carlos, pressing the tip of his boot against Carlos’ forehead, butterfly light, tutting softly as he rolls Carlos’ head slightly to the side. The spiked wheel of his spur comes to rest so close to Carlos’ eye that he can see irregularities in the tiny barbs, the way it trembles ever so slightly in its wheel. 

“Should I put your pretty eyes out, scientist, to teach you not to go lookin’ where you ain’t wanted?” The Sheriff whispers, increasing the pressure of his boot against Carlos’ forehead, and bringing his spur close enough to Carlos’ eye for it to go out of focus. 

A strange and very quiet popping sound, like a change of air pressure, rings through the room suddenly, and the Sheriff turns sharply to look at one of the hooded figures, the one which had restrained him before. Something seems to pass between them, and Cecil thinks he sees the hooded figure shaking its head, almost imperceptibly. The Sheriff looks back down at Carlos, and takes his foot away with a grunt. He licks his lips again, and his face becomes impassive again. 

“You will return to your homes,” he says, quietly. “And you will forget this. You will speak of this to nobody. If we catch even the slightest stink of talk about hooded figures or strange doors, there will be no second chances.” 

He turns away without another word, folds himself into the sedan chair, and closes the door, somehow. The two women pick it up immediately, and begin maneuvering it back out the door. 

“See you soon,” murmurs Anders’ voice, just as the sedan chair is swallowed by the darkness on the other side of the door. The hooded figures sweep out behind it, and the door closes softly. 

As soon as they’re gone, Carlos scrambles up off the floor, stumbling slightly as his head spins. His touches his forehead, feels the imprint of the Sheriff’s boot, and then a sticky spot above his eyebrow which stings when he touches it. His fingers come away scarlet, and he grabs Cecil by the wrist.

“Are you alright? Can you walk?” He whispers desperately. Cecil nods, slinging one arm over Carlos’s shoulders and hauling himself up. 

“I’m okay, I’m - stop _fussing_ , let’s _go_ -” 

They leave the room, Cecil limping, Carlos supporting him, and are plunged into darkness. The journey to the door at the other end of the space seems to take hours. They lose sight of the door at the other end several times, and Cecil’s injury seems to worsen so much that he practically resorts to dragging his leg behind him. They stumble out of the dark into the relative brightness of the tunnel after what feels like hours, and the second they close the door, it vanishes with an angry cracking sound. Carlos’s car is sitting there in the middle of the tunnel exactly as they left it. They get in, and speed away towards the day light. Carlos’s hands shake as they drive, sure that this is a trick, that something more will block their way, but no. Nothing happens. They burst out into early morning sun, and find themselves on the edge of town. 

“Oh, god, we made it.” Carlos says. His hands are shaking so badly he doesn’t think he can drive any more, so he pulls over onto the dusty side road, near a patch of bushes. He presses his forehead against the wheel.

“Cecil-” He begins, but Cecil cuts him off. 

“Please don’t try to apologize.”

Carlos rolls his head to the side, still leaning against the steeling wheel. Cecil is looking at him with a maddeningly calm smile. 

“Okay, but - I mean, is that it?” Carlos says slightly hysterically, lifting his head up. “What, they’re not going to do anything at all? People have been murdered in this town for just _thinking_ about the wrong things, never mind walking straight into them and practically spitting in the Sheriff’s face!” 

“Technically, _he_ spat in _my_ face.” Cecil murmurs, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Can we talk about this later? I’m super tired.” 

Carlos sighs deeply, still jittery, but now that Cecil says it, he realises how tired he is, too, the last good night of sleep he got having been several days ago. Reluctantly, he takes hold of the wheel again, pulls the car out of the dusty patch, and drives down the road leading back into town.  As they drive, Carlos starts trying to channel his panic into something more productive. He starts planning the only thing he really knows what to do.

“Research,” he mutters under his breath, as they round a corner. He stops the car again, abruptly, and reaches across Cecil to the glove pocket, where he extracts a small, black case. He pops it open, and Cecil watches, intrigued despite his exhaustion, as Carlos gets out a petri dish and a thin, metal instrument not unlike a tiny garden hoe.

“Do you always carry science things with you?” 

“Of course. One never knows when one will need to...do science. And I have a hunch about something. Lean over?” 

Cecil leans forward obediently. Carlos puts a hand under Cecil’s chin, and tilts his head to the side carefully. Cecil closes his eyes and leans into the hand pressing against his jaw, trying not to flinch when the instrument removes something from his cheek. 

“What’s that?” 

“He spat blood in your face.” 

“Gross.” 

“Gross, but useful,” Carlos mutters, transferring the blood and spittle sample into the petri dish.

“There. Let’s see what we can get out of that. I’d run it down to the lab now right now, but I’d bet anything it’s been bugged since I arrived,” he says, bitterly. He takes out his notepad and scribbles down a few notes at the front, and then flips to the back, pauses, and scribbles some more. Cecil watches him through half closed eyes, and leans his head against the door as the engine kicks back on, and they start driving again.

“You’ll work something out,” Cecil murmurs. “You are a scientist, and working things out is what scientists do.” 

Carlos laughs at that, a deep, slightly goofy laugh which Cecil has never heard him use before. The corners of his eyes crinkle up, and Cecil notices that his teeth, which are straight on the top, are slightly crooked on the bottom, and for some reason, this makes him seem not less perfect, or less handsome, but more human. Closer. With that one thought acting as a heady soporific, he drifts into bottomless sleep with his head resting against the window.

 


	3. Chapter 3

_“Hello, you’ve reached Night Vale Community Radio Station, this is Producer Hitomi speaking. If you are calling to report that you or one one of your loved ones has gone missing, please note that the acceleration of the missing persons epidemic has already been reported to us by several concerned citizens, and will be featured in this evening’s news report.”_

_“Hitomi? Why are you answering the phone? I thought that was Intern Georgia’s job.”_

" _Oh, hey, Cecil. Yeah, Georgia had a mishap at the grocery store last night. We think she’s on the run. That homeless guy who breaks into people’s houses and licks all their cutlery thinks he saw her skipping town in burqa this morning.”_

_“I see. So, listen, I’m going to need you to cover the show for me today.”_

_“What? Why? Are you sick? You sound like shit.”_

_“Thanks, Hitomi. I’m not ill, I’m injured. I did a number on my left femur. Lucky I still had those crutches from last year’s shadow puppet performance lying around in my apartment, huh.”_

_“That - is the dumbest sack of crap I have ever heard. Screw your leg, you don’t speak out of your leg. Stop being such a limp noodle, Cee, and get your butt in this rat house on time, okay?”_

_“Hitomi, if you would just d-”_

_“How did you even injure yourself? Which femur are we talking about here?”_

_“Left thigh bone. I was called on an excursion by Carlos to go investigate that stupid bugling sound, which, by the way, you’ll never guess.”_

  _“Never guess what?”_

  _“Clarion bears.”_

  _“You’re shitting me.”_

  _“I am not.”_

  _“No way! I thought they were a myth. Fitzpatrick said they sounded like panpipes.”_

  _“I know, I didn’t believe it at first either, but that’s what it is. Was. Hopefully it’s good news. Put that in the report too, would you?”_

  _“Cecil, I am not doing your show! God knows that if I can reorganize the entire archives with third degree burns, you can do your own goddamned show with a twisted ankle or whatever.”_

_“Hitomi, please. I can’t come in today, I...last night really was quite an ordeal for me-”_

_“Yeah, yeah, cry me a river, Cecil. See you at five. I’ll have your coffee ready.”_

* * * 

Which is how Cecil ends up stumbling into work that day and the next and the next, sleepless and haggard. He does the show like a robot, getting Interns to collect stories for him and write them up in full instead of doing it himself. Summer is on the turn, and the nights are getting rapidly colder and colder. Even though the Clarion bears have gone now, any sleep he gets is disturbed by bad dreams. He wakes up early, and cold, every morning, but worst of all, he hasn’t heard from Carlos. Cecil tried calling him a few times, but Carlos only picked up once, and that time he sounded distracted, and the signal cut them off. 

Three days pass before he hears from Carlos again. He finds himself falling asleep during a lengthly, pre-recorded report. He slips, still half lucid, into surreal dreams about burning buildings and endless swimming in a gelatinous, suffocating ocean, where the waves wobble and are thick like gelatin. Cecil is jolted awake by his producer Hitomi poking her head around the door and singing:  “Cee, phone!” 

She blinks rapidly when she sees him, her heart shaped face framed by a waterfall of sleek black hair. “Were you _sleeping_?”

“No,” Cecil snaps, taking the phone from her hand, keeping his palm cupped around the speaker. “Who is it?” 

Hitomi has already vanished back into the office behind the booth, singing, “How the heck should I know?” 

Cecil checks on the report. One minute, three seconds left.

“Hello?” 

_“Cecil! It’s me.”_

“Carlos?” Cecil sits bolt upright in the booth’s spinning chair, straightens his glasses. “Where have you been? Are you okay?”

_“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. More than fine. I’m sorry, I had a lot of work to do, time got away from me. Literally. Listen, when do you leave work again?”_ Carlos sounds nervous, excited even.

“Um. Around seven?”

_“That long? Okay, never mind, I suppose that will have to do. Listen, I need you to meet me at the place where you didn’t want to talk about it because you were too tired.”_  

He speaks with deliberate slowness and clearness. Cecil fiddles with his pen, suddenly nervous. His injured leg twinges, and he feels phantom flecks of spittle hitting his face.

“Is this...is this the place where you shouldn’t have apologised?” 

“ _Yeah_.” Carlos sounds immensely relieved. _“There, as soon as you can.”_

“Well, okay.” Cecil says, unsurely. “Are you sure that everything’s alright?” 

_“Yeah, yeah. It’s good news, don’t worry. See you then. You’re almost back on, by the way.”_

“What? Oh!” Cecil drops the phone, and hastily pushes a few sliders. He thinks he hears laughter, and then the line goes dead. A piece of paper has materialised on his desk, as pieces of paper regularly do. He reads from it, just as the special report ends. 

“Dear Listeners, it is my duty and honour to announce that this week has been declared Patriotism Week. The Sheriff’s secret police is encouraging citizens to do their part to show just how much they love our fair town - some suggestions include: teaching your children the revised history of Night Vale from any of the one many, many chapters of the one government approved history book in the Night Vale Public Library; singing the Night Vale anthem in public places as loudly and aggressively as possible, and purchasing ‘I Heart Night Vale’ shirts from the large stall which has been set up in the middle of town. The shirts are one size fits all, just like our dear, dear Night Vale.” 

The report goes on, and Cecil reads it, but he isn’t really there. He can feel his mouth moving to frame the words, but he isn’t processing them at all. His mind is far away, lost in the swamp of Carlos’s cryptic phone call. He carries on reading the report, eyes glancing up at the clock every few seconds. 

* * *

Carlos is sitting in a bush. The bush is prickly, and he keeps finding large caterpillars inching their way up his arms and legs. He examines one of them as it crawls to the peak of his pinkie finger. It’s black and white, and covered in thin, bristly hairs. It reaches the tip of his finger, and then rears up, and appears to look around for a moment, and then it slams its shiny little head back down, stabbing Carlos’s finger with something razor sharp. Carlos swears loudly in Spanish, and a vigorous shake of his hand flings the caterpillar away, leaving a curved stinger longer than its own body buried deep in the tip of his finger. He goes still as the sound of approaching footsteps, then Cecil appears, looking down at him. 

“Carlos?” He says, smiling unsurely. “What are you-?”

“I was hiding,” Carlos says, stumbling to his feet, “And I got stung by a stupid caterpillar.” 

“Oh, no. Where?” 

Cecil takes Carlos’s hand gently, and winces at the look of the sting. 

“A caterpillar did this?”

“Yeah. Black and white. Around two inches long. Shiny head.” 

“Ohhhh, that’s just an Uglybug, they live all over, they’re harmless. We used to catch them as kids, put them in jars and keep them as pets until they chrysalise one day, and then come out looking even grosser and die after a few days. The City Council endorses children keeping them as pets, because they’re such a good way of teaching them about disillusionment and disappointment.”

Before Carlos can protest, Cecil brings his hand up to his mouth, clamps his teeth over the stinger and yanks. Carlos takes a sharp intake of breath, and snatches his hand back. 

“You’re welcome,” Cecil says smugly, spitting the stinger out onto the floor. They both watch it wriggle away in the sand. Its departure leaves a heavy, slightly uncomfortable silence over them both. Carlos, hand throbbing, cringes at the hot surge of guilt he feels when he notices the wooden crutch Cecil is leaning against. All the half-baked apologies and penances hang in the air around Carlos’s head like a bad smell. 

“Look, I know you don’t want to hear it-” He begins, but Cecil cuts him off with a dismissive wave of the hand, like he’s batting away a fly. 

“I could have just refused to go, if I had really wanted,” he says, firmly. “It’s not like you were using mind control or something.” 

“ _Mind_ con- you know what, forget it. But still. I put you in danger. And I’m sorry.” 

“I’m sorry too. Sorry you had to see Sheriff Anders in a mood like that. He’s usually such a nice man.” 

Carlos, who had been kicking at stones the dirt, raises a single eyebrow. “Yeah, he seemed like an absolute peach.” 

Cecil frowns. “Did you bring me out here just to insult the Sheriff?”

“No! For once, it’s good news. Great news, in fact. Can - how far can you walk?” 

“As far as we’re going.”  

“Are you sure?” Carlos looks at the wooden crutch dubiously, and sees the white knuckled strength with which Cecil is clutching it.

“Yeah, I’m sure. It’s much better than it was yesterday.” 

“Well, okay. If it starts hurting, we can stop and rest.”

Carlos starts leading them out, heading back into town, but away from the road. Cecil follows him out into the empty desert, limping, and Carlos walks as slowly as he dares. A dry wind is blowing all around them, throwing sand and dead leaves around in the air. There are some buildings in the distance, which look fuzzy and only half real in the minor sand storm. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Carlos sees Cecil do something strange - he leans down, holding the crutch out awkwardly, scoops up a handful of sand, and then keeps it in his fist. He catches up with Carlos quickly. 

“What’s that for?”

Cecil goes pink. He shrugs. “Good luck for desert journeys,” he mumbles. Thin trains of sand seep out of his fist. Now, usually, Carlos finds superstitions at best a mildly interesting quaintness and at worst, seriously irritating, but this one is somehow so endearing, so very _Cecil_ that Carlos thinks, not for the first time in the last few days, that he’d never really known what it felt like to actually miss a person before he came to Night Vale. Looking at Cecil from the corner of his eye, he nearly says it out loud.

Nearly. 

They walk in silence for a long time, until the buildings become clearer, and they see that it’s actually only one building, hidden by a circle of tall, leafy trees. The sand under their feet peters out into dark, hard packed dirt. Cecil pauses as they leave the desert. He holds out his palm, murmurs something, and lets go of the fistful of sand. They both watch as the grains get whipped up in a gust, and carried away. 

“My mom was full of things like that,” Carlos mutters. Cecil turns around awkwardly with his crutch, and smiles. 

“Really?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Do scientists have any superstitions?” Cecil asks, somewhat teasingly.

“The entire purpose of the scientific enterprise is to dispel unfounded sentiment,” Carlos intones haughtily. Cecil doesn’t seem convinced. 

“Everybody’s a little superstitious. I’ll catch you throwing the proverbial salt over your shoulder one day, mister. Maybe even the literal salt.” 

“I doubt that.”

“I don’t.” Cecil says, simply. Carlos huffs but doesn’t reply. 

Passing underneath the trees, Cecil feels an unpleasant squelch as he stands on something which gives easily, and looks down to see that the floor is littered with rotting purple fruit. He cranes his neck, and sees that the boughs of the trees are heavy with dark, purple plums. 

The squat, red-brick house sits in the shadow of an enormous old oak tree, which curves over the roof, whalebone shaped, like half of a doorless archway. It’s wizened trunk is nearly black with age, and carved with strange glyphs, and the canopy, way, way above their heads, casts gently moving shadows on the floor. He knows on sight somehow that it’s very, very old. The leaves scattered about around their feet don’t look like any leaves he recognises.  There’s something piercingly sad about the sight of that isolated, lopsided tree which has the hairs on the back of Cecil’s neck standing on end. He looks away. 

“Where are we, anyway?” Cecil asks, as they near the house. 

“You’ll see,” Carlos says. He sees the way that the sunset throws diamonds of tree-sliced sunlight over Cecil’s face, and looks away quickly, but not quickly enough to completely avoid uncomfortable, distorted memories of feeling scared of Cecil. Half as a means of distracting himself, he gets out his notebook, flips to the back, and starts scribbling.

A little way off in the distance is a trailer, and even further than that, the omnipresent bright, florescent lights of the car lot. Cecil thinks sees someone sitting on the steps of the trailer, looking in their direction, but the more he squints in their direction, the harder it becomes to see. They near the front of the house, walking around a haphazard vegetable patch. They pause just before the doormat, which reads _Welcome, Friends,_ and Carlos gives Cecil a reassuring smile before he raps his knuckles against the dark wooden door. 

Somewhere inside the house, what sounds like swing music suddenly stops playing. They hear the creaking of floorboards, and muttering, getting closer and closer, and then- 

“Well, if it isn’t Carlos the Conquistador, back so soon.” 

“Hi, Lejosephine,” Carlos says warmly, to the little old lady standing on the doorstep. Old Woman Josie is very short, the top of her dreadlocked head coming up to their chests. She looks weighed down by her many colourful, patterned shawls and large, bottle-end glasses, a red-jeweled headband slung low over her broad forehead. A heady, flowery perfume drifts out from inside the house. Her sharp, bespectacled eyes roam over their faces, humour sitting in the lines on her face. She looks up at him, and smiles toothily. 

“Oh good, you bought your friend. And if it isn’t plum gumbo himself!” 

Carlos looks questioningly at Cecil, who grins sheepishly. “Hi, Josie.” 

“You boys bring yourselves inside,” She says. “I’ll join you both in a scratch, just gotta go talk with the neighbors,” she says, reaching behind the door and pulling a shotgun out of an umbrella stand before taking off walking with surprising speed in the direction of the trailer. Cecil and Carlos hesitate on the front porch, waiting until she’s out of earshot. 

“Plum gumbo?” Carlos snickers. 

“What?” Cecil says, defensively. “She makes good gumbo.”

A rustling sound coming from behind them interrupts Carlos’s response. 

There is something standing on a ladder resting against one of the plum trees a few meters away from them, a nearly full basket held in the crook of one elbow. Its face is obscured by the leaves as long, muscled arms bring down handfuls of four or five big, purple plums at a time, dropping them into the basket with innumerably fingered hands. It’s wearing denim dungarees splattered with paint, and under that, an ill-fitting patterned jumper which looks hand knitted, and far too hot for the desert. 

Its back is to them, and Cecil stares, dumbstruck, at the pair of broad, white wings on its back, the soft-looking feathers rustling slightly in the light breeze. Cecil thinks he can see shades of silver in them as they catch the light. The back of its head is obscured by a flat, effulgent golden disk which seems to radiate candlelight. They watch as, still with its back turned, it descends from the ladder. The way it moves is strange - frames of movements seem to lag, or stutter slightly, like a flipbook. 

The thing starts walking back towards the house, and Cecil sees its face for the first time, and feels a shiver run down his spine like a cold sweat. A wide mouth with thick, full lips, a shining black nose not unlike a deer’s, and three large, silver eyes, a unblinking one set in the forehead. Immaculately smooth and clear skin, long, black hair pulled into a plait, face framed by that golden disk, which Cecil now sees is made of slowly rotating concentric circles. Its head is crowned by a pair of antlers covered in a downy white velvet the colour of its wings, reaching up towards the sky like skeletal trees. The angel ignores them completely, and Carlos feels the by-now familiar sensation of his feet leaving the ground minutely as it sweeps away towards the house, humming something that sounds a lot like ‘dancing in the moonlight’. Its bare feet leave footprints in the dirt which fade, visibly, and are gone within a matter of seconds. Cecil looks over at his friend, who is staring after the angel with a look of deep consternation and yet, evident fascination. 

“Carlos, an angel! _”_

“They’re not an angels, they’re very _corporeal_ anomalies which people are projecting familiar childhood fantasies onto.” 

“Okay, but an _angel…”_

Carlos frowns at Cecil. “It is not an angel.”

“Yeah, okay, and you don’t like tomatoes, and I don’t speak Italian.” 

“What does me liking tomatoes have to do with anything? And you _don’t_ speak Italian.” 

Cecil shrugs. “Okay, whatever, Mr.I-just-saw-an-actual-real-life-angel-but-don’t-want-to-admit-it-because-I’m-into-textbooks-and-trees-instead.” 

“What does that even - you know what, Cecil, forget it, what you call them is immaterial. Most of them are certainly less hospitable than you might expect angels to be, anyway.” 

“Yeah, that did seem like a rather frosty welcome. Maybe they can only love one human at a time? They certainly seem to like Josie a lot.” 

“Yeah.” Carlos says, skeptically. “Maybe that’s it.” 

Cecil sees Carlos’s eyes alight on something over his shoulder, and his face breaks into an affable smile. 

“Hi, Damson,” he says, and Cecil whips around to see another angel towering over them. The angel Damson is tall, taller than the last one, and darker, but has a similar pair of dungarees, heavy, brown working boots and the same glowing, moving circular disc around the back of its head. The angel wears an ill-fitting hand knitted jumper, striped blue and yellow, and stretched too tightly over its broad shoulders. There are special holes made into the back to accommodate a pair of silky, brown wings with strips of white and brown, like a barn owl’s. The angel Damson raises a hand, and wiggles its many slender fingers, parting its near-black lips in a grin.

“Carlos! It’s good to see you back,” the angel says, in a rich voice which echoes ever so slighty. Cecil notices that one of its antlers is missing, leaving a flat, glum looking stump. Without it, the angel has a somewhat lopsided look. Setting down the basket of plums, it reaches down to muss Carlos’s hair affectionately, and Cecil and Damson both laugh at the annoyed expression on his face as he wonders why people in this town won’t leave his hair alone. 

“Cecil, this is Damson,” he starts. “Damson, this is-” 

“No introductions!” Damson says, sounding excited. “You think I wouldn’t recognise the face of the voice of Night Vale when I see it?” It takes Cecil’s hand and shakes it firmly between both of its own. Its skin is cool and its hands are surprisingly light-feeling, like pumice, and its single antler, which is the colour of a horse chestnut, casts funny, lightning-shaped shadows over all of them. 

“I listen to your show every day. It’s very illuminating, heaps better than WZZZ.”

“Oh my, well, it’s certainly very nice to meet you too, Damson,” Cecil says, slightly flustered. 

“And listen,” Damson says, “I’m sorry about my friend ignoring you just now. Some of the others haven’t acclimatized to sharing the watering hole yet. They’ll learn.”

“I hope I’m not being rude,” Cecil asks, somewhat hesitantly, “but I thought all angels were called Erika?” 

“Cecil-” Carlos mutters under his breath, sounding embarrassed. “You can’t say that.”

“But that’s what-”

“That’s just what Josie calls them all,” Carlos explains, quickly. “They prefer it if people choose their own names for them. Damson’s the only one who really looks after the plum trees, and they’re damson trees,” Carlos says, with a shrug. 

Cecil opens his mouth to reply, and it stays open but no sound comes out, because the angel suddenly puts its hands on Cecil’s shoulders, and squeezes firmly. Damson seems to breathe in, and Cecil feels a rush of heat, or perhaps cold, go through him like a gentle breeze. He closes his mouth. He’s keenly aware of Carlos watching him, but can’t seem to tear his eyes away from the three milky orbs in Damson’s face, which is at once alien and inhuman, and also full of such fondness and wisdom that Cecil feels they must have known each other for all their lives. 

“Your heart is as clear and bright as Marcus Vanston’s koi carp pond.” Damson says. “Not without its darkness, a few blunders and blindnessess, but there’s no trace of true evil there. It’s a good heart, an honest one. You should find it easier to sleep at night than the koi carp do, at least.” The angel says, dropping its hands from Cecil’s shoulders with a final squeeze. “Seriously, never trust a koi carp. Some of those fish have _seen_ things, man.” 

Carlos laughs, and Cecil, face burning, feels Carlos’s fingers brush his own, very lightly. He glances over, to see Carlos looking at him with a funny little smile.

“That’s a rave review,” he says, very quietly, and Cecil blushes even harder, mumbling something indistinct about always having liked koi carp. 

“I’ll catch you two later. Here,” Damson says, tossing a plump, bruise coloured plum at each of them. “Try these.” 

The angel pauses as it walks past them towards the house, just for a moment, and again, both of them are struck with the sensation of being lifted off the ground by just a few centimeters as it does. Carlos notices the angel’s fingertips brushing Cecil’s leg, briefly, as it passes. Cecil’s eyes widen in surprise, and he takes his weight off the crutch. Carlos knows without him saying it that his leg suddenly feels much better. 

As both of them turn to watch the angel lope away, they notice that a small group of others have gathered by the house, watching their conversation, and muttering amongst themselves. The looks that they give Damson as the angel breezes into the house are decidedly hostile, and they scatter without so much as a glance at the two humans. Carlos inspects the slightly warm plum in his palm, trying to ascertain if it’s really alright to eat. He frowns when he looks up to find that Cecil has already taken a big bite out of his. 

“Cecil, you can’t just _eat_ it!” 

“Why not?” Cecil says, voice muffled. “It’s delicious.” 

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to accept food from strangers?” 

Cecil rolls his eyes, pointedly taking another bite from his plum. “ _Obviously_ , not from strangers. But Damson’s an _angel.”_

Carlos’s frown deepens. Watching Cecil happily chewing the fruit, he thinks about how Cecil’s heart might very well be as clear as a koi carp pond, but his habit of putting his trust in people so quickly is deeply worrying. Even how much he trusts Carlos, actually, no, _especially_ how much he trusts Carlos is a constant source of anxiety - Cecil doesn’t even know why they’re here, and he’s barely even asked. He just followed Carlos out into the desert like it was the most natural thing to do. Broodingly, Carlos, takes a bite out of his own plum, and makes a surprised sound. 

“Good, right?” Cecil says, and he laughs loud and carefree as Carlos takes another bite, trying and failing to mask his enthusiasm. 

Josie’s voice suddenly rings out from behind them, and they turn to see her standing in the porch, evidently having returned (eerily silently) from her visit to the trailer.

“What are you two doing loitering around outside like a pair of shady door-to-door salesmen? Come inside! Tea’s getting cold.” 

The inside of Old Woman Josie’s house is like a Parisian flea market. Every surface is covered in odd, colourful trinkets - glass jars full of coloured sand or liquid, porcelain animals, ornate candles with wax stalactites dripping halfway to the carpet. Cecil’s eyes are drawn to a bloodstone urn sitting on a shelf near the door. He draws near to it, examining the glyphs painted on it in white; they look like the same language carved into the old oak tree which shades the house from the sun. He touches it, wanting to turn it round to see if there’s anything on the other side, but the urn gives a violent shudder, and he recoils. There’s something about the urn’s shaking which, although completely silent, suggests _screaming._

Hanging on the wall just inside the door is a large, painted map of Night Vale, and then every other spot of pomegranate-coloured wallpaper is covered by hundreds and hundreds of exquisitely coloured oil paintings, all of them familiar faces from around town. John Peters, feeding an apple to a large, chocolate coloured horse. Mayor Cardinal, bathing a young child whom Cecil doesn’t recognise. Earl Harlan, sitting in a booth at a diner and staring out of the window, waiting. He spots one of Hitomi doing yoga, nailed to the ceiling above his head, right next to - 

“Oh my gosh, look, it’s us!” 

Carlos cranes his neck, noticing the paintings for the first time. There’s one of Cecil, walking down a crowded street and looking at something over his left shoulder. His mouth is slightly open, and his expression one of mild surprise. Next to it is Carlos, caught sleeping fully clothed on the sofa in his apartment, the silver hair at his temples bought out by the dim light of the reading lamp. Above their paintings is the only one Carlos can see with two people. In it, he and Cecil are standing shoulder to shoulder in Cecil’s apartment, chopping vegetables. Cecil is facing down, concentrating on dicing a pile of tomatoes, but Carlos is looking at him, knife at a rest next to a pile of shredded herbs. His expression is searching. Carlos remembers that night. He blushes violently. 

“What a lovely painting,” Cecil says, gesturing to the one of them together. Carlos shrugs, clearing his throat.

“I prefer the one of you,” he replies, moving through the hall, past countless other faces. Cecil leaves his now-useless crutch leaning against the wall, next to a painting of his sister Abby ripping a string of pearls off her neck, sending the pearls flying. 

“So, hey, am I ever going to find out what we’re doing here?” 

“Yeah, I just thought it would be safer to explain it once we were inside the house,” Carlos says, looking up from inspecting a painting of an unfamiliar man crying into his hands. “Remember I said I wanted to find somewhere to do my research which wasn’t bugged?”

Cecil nods. 

“I found a place.” 

“Where? _Here?”_

“No, not here,” Carlos grins, taking a step away. “Heaven.” 


	4. Chapter 4

Josie’s kitchen is cramped, and humid. The ceiling is almost completely obscured by a static cascade of pots, pans, mugs and cooking utensils which are suspended on what look like fishing lines. There are several enormous, copper tubs full of fragrant plum jam sitting on the counter, which Josie is also standing on, piling biscuits onto a plate. One other counter is entirely taken up by stacks and stacks jam jars, all labelled in big, friendly letters **‘JOSIE’S OLD FASHIONED LIFELIKE PLUM JAM’** and then, underneath, in smaller writing, ‘WARNING: LIKE LIFE, PRODUCT MAY CONTAIN DANGEROUS AND INDIGESTIBLE CHOKING HAZARDS. LIKE LIFE, THERE IS NO COMPLAINTS DEPARTMENT OR RETURNS POLICY. UNLIKE LIFE, JOSIE’S OLD FASHIONED WILL LAST FOR AS LONG, IF NOT LONGER, AS YOU WANT IT TO.’ 

There are three mugs of steaming liquid on the small, wooden table in the middle of the room. 

“-somewhat a busy social life, especially with all these angels, but I can always make time for my boys. It really is lovely to see you both. Sit!” She commands, in her gravelly voice, gesticulating wildly towards the table as she clatters down from the counter on a tiny set of stairs. Cecil and Carlos sit down obediently at the circular table, which has been scratched, burnt and marked by cups so many times that it’s hard to tell what it might originally have looked like. He glances out of the corner of his eye furtively, hands in his lap, to see Carlos looking dubiously at the mug of vaguely pinkish drink which has been placed before him. 

Old Woman Josie, instead of sitting down herself, rushes back to the hob to stir the jam in a huge, copper tub over the hob, still talking. They both watch as she grabs a handful metal slivers and drops them into the vat, and stirs them in rigorously. 

“Y’know, I was so excited when Carlos here asked me if he could use Heaven. Well, he didn’t actually say that, he said it all formal in that way of his, ‘I need somewhere to conduct scientific research of a highly sensitive nature.’ Could have just said he needed somewhere to cook his hooch and I would have been satisfied. And he’s been coming and going every day since then. What a nerd!” She says, chuckling good-naturedly. 

“I really think I may have missed something here.” Cecil whispers to Carlos over his undrunk tea, as Josie continues to talk. Carlos glances at Josie, and leans over the table to whisper excitedly at Cecil. 

“She said that she had a space she could give me which isn’t under surveillance. It’s something to do with the angels. I’ve been working there.” 

He coughs suddenly, clearing his throat, and then politely interrupts Josie.

“It really was very kind of you to offer. I do appreciate the...risk you were taking in doing that.”

“Risk schmisk, risks is the only excitement you can get in a town like this. Anyway, Heaven’s about the only place in Night Vale where there ain’t nobody watching or listening. I use it for my bathtime right now, but I couldn’t hardly let my favourite scientist go without a place for his, his, what did you call it?” 

“Research of a highly sensitive nature,” Cecil supplies. 

“That was it. And plum gumbo’s going to be his assistant now! This is just all so exciting. I’d ask to help out too, if science weren’t a dreadful, dreadful sin. But hey hoo, boys will be boys.” She shrugs her shoulders expansively, and, finally, comes and sits down with them. She looks at them curiously over the rim of her mug. 

“That being said,” She muses, stirring her tea, “I would still rather like to know what it is you’ve been using Heaven for.” The shrewd look she gives Carlos then suddenly makes him think that she may not be as scatterbrained as she makes herself out to be. He drums his fingers on the table, trying to come up with a response that will tell her everything she needs to know - that is, nothing. Cecil beats him to it. 

“If we’re honest Josie, it’s mainly the idea of his research being observed which bothers poor Carlos,” he says. Josie nods sagely. 

“I understand completely. Oh, you’ve always been such a good boy, Cecil.” She smiles indulgently. “I have Erika watch you specially, you know. With that dangerous job of yours, I do worry about my plum gumbo.” 

“Aw, Josie,” Cecil mumbles, fidgeting. “So, do you do all these paintings?” He asks, glancing curiously at one which sits in pride of place above the fireplace, of a smiling woman leaning against a pitchfork, a purple veil draped loosely over her dark hair. Even in stillness, she seems graceful. There’s a bunch of dried cornflowers laid out on the mantlepiece underneath it, and a lit candle.

“Gosh, no. It’s Erika who does them. Erika likes to paint people when they’re being beautiful.” She seems to notice Cecil looking at the painting of the woman. “Her name was Jochebed.” 

There’s a moment of silence, when all three of them watch the candle fluttering in the light breeze coming from the open window, and then Josie then claps her hands together.

“You boys ready to go now? Of course you are. Erika!” She cries, excitedly. She gestures expansively at Cecil and Carlos, her many bracelets clinking and rattling crazily. “Come on, soldiers, up on your feet, time’s winged chariots are hurrying near! Erika!” 

Cecil and Carlos stand, alarmed, as two angels drift through the doorway and surround her, both dressed in dungarees and underneath, brightly coloured, patterned jumpers. In the cramped room they seem to take up all available space, obscuring tiny Josie from view.

“You sure took your time,” says Josie’s voice, somehow distorted, like the angels’ presence in the room is physically changing the shape of the air. “Cortez here needs taking back to Heaven, and his friend gumbo this time too, and from now on. Would two of you be dears and take them?” 

The angels don’t move, and Josie seems to pause, listening for a moment, and then they hear her hiss, “Don’t be ridiculous, Erika. They’re _friends._ Now you get your lanky divine backsides over there and take my guests to Heaven or so help me, there’ll be no more midnight snacks for you coming from _my_ kitchen.” 

Two of the angels turn slowly towards Cecil and Carlos, and begin to drift towards them, arms outstretched, expressions unyielding. Carlos cringes habitually as they come closer, and he has to restrain himself from running away and hiding in a cupboard somewhere.

“I hate this bit,” he mutters. 

“What do we have to do?” Cecil asks, reverent and nervous. 

“Watch,” Carlos says. The angels come to a still, presenting their hands palms upwards. Reluctantly, as if being forced to lower his hands into Josie’s vat of boiling jam, he places his hands down onto the angel’s palms. The effect is immediate, like someone had changed the channel on the television. As soon as he feels the gentle, heatless touch of the angel’s palms to his own, Josie’s fragrant cluttered kitchen vanishes, and is replaced by a large, vaguely circular white room, filled with his equipment. While he catches his breath, the air nearby begins to boil and warp, and the next second, Cecil is standing next to him, looking dazed. He staggers, and Carlos catches him by the arm before he can break any of the instruments. 

“You okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah, just dizzy. Um. This is Heaven?” 

“Well, it’s not _literal_ heaven. Obviously. Josie said it’s just a, a...space, somewhere. Which belongs to the angels. I try not to think about it. Ever.” 

“Neat. Y’know,” Cecil says, glancing around, seeing the cabinets full of equipment, the  computer on the desk, the pile of folders and notepads, “this looks a lot like your lab.” 

“That’s because it is, in a way,” Carlos says, watching Cecil lean over to examine a complicated-looking chemistry setup of glass tubes and flasks and coloured liquids.

“The angels...acquired all the equipment, from the lab. In some way. And they’re sure that nobody will ever notice. Somehow.” 

“You try not to think about it?” Cecil guesses, looking at Carlos through one of the bulbous flasks so that his eye looks huge, bug-like. Carlos gets out his notepad, flicks to the back, scribbles something down. 

“Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. But you can’t imagine how wonderful it feels, being able to move without being watched.” Carlos is suddenly struck by a thought. “Is that be a first for you?” 

“What’s a first for me, not thinking about stuff?” Cecil asks, looking up from the chemistry set-up. “Because, let me tell you-”

 

“Not that, I mean not being observed. Not being - not being the bacteria at the bottom of a petri dish.” 

Cecil looks surprised. “Huh. I guess it is. For a while, at least. I’ve been out of Night Vale before, of course, but not since...a while.”

“Curse.” 

“Huh?” 

Carlos grins and, feeling exhilarated and uncharacteristically playful from the prospect of their escape, presses on. “Go on, I dare you. Curse. Nobody can hear.”

Cecil frowns, but Carlos is delighted to notice him blushing.

“I thought you were a _scientist_ , not a seven year old,” he demurs. 

“Scientists are allowed to have fun too.” 

Cecil hesitates for a moment. “I don’t know any curse words. The city council banned them all.”

“So? People don’t make up new ones?” 

“Of course they do. They make them up, and then nobody uses them. Apart from Hitomi.” 

“What? Why?” 

“Because!” Cecil flaps his hands around, getting steadily more pink by the moment. 

“Because they’re curse words! They have to _be_ there, but you don’t actually _say_ them! They’re there to be not said! _”_

Carlos flips open his notebook, and scrawls a word down, and holds it up for Cecil to see. Cecil won’t even look at it.

“Say this.” 

“No.”

“Say it. It’s just a four letter sound, it doesn’t mean anything.” 

“Absolutely not. Unequivocally, no.” 

“Cecil, you’ve alreadybroken the law a hundred times today. You’re a subversive radio host, hiding out in a non-surveilled area, with _angels_ , and a foreigner scientist, and a lady who probably puts buckshot in her jam. What’s one more little thing on today’s list of capital offenses?”

Cecil hesitates, and finally, glances at the page. He opens his mouth, and closes it again, several times. His blush deepens to a shade not unlike beetroot, and he mumbles something under his breath.

“What was that?” 

Cecil mumbles again, just a faction louder.

“Speak up!”

“Fuck, okay there I said it!” Cecil rushes out, covering his eyes with his hands. “I can’t believe I just did that,” he says, and laughs a high pitched, embarrassed laugh. “Are you done? Can we please get down to science now?” 

“Yeah, I’m done,” Carlos says, clearing his mind, still smiling. He flicks through his notepad, focussing on his notes from the past few days. 

“Okay. Let me fill you in. Do you remember, that night we met the Sheriff, I told you that there’s an incredibly complex spiderweb of energy lines all over Night Vale? And that was what helped us find the Clarion bears.” 

Cecil nods encouragingly, and Carlos leads him towards the other side of the lab, where a familiar looking metal box is resting on the counter, plugged into the computer and making a quiet whirring sound. The computer screen is pulsing with numbers and glyphs and swirling neon colours.  

“Hey, that’s the scanner that we used that night, right?” 

Carlos nods, patting it fondly. “I had it in my pocket the whole time we were in that lab, and it picked up some really fascinating results, so I guess that’s one good thing which came out of that mess. The results are still in the processing stage. I’ve been having some trouble getting the computer to render them visually, but from what I could see of the raw data, that lab was connected to an enormous network of energy lines. With some luck, the fully analysed results might be able to tell us more about what that place was.” 

“But, the most important thing I’ve been looking at is those samples we got from Anders. That’s what all this was for,” he says, walking them back to the chemistry set-up. He extracts a petri dish from it, and gives it to Cecil to examine. The tiniest flake of dried red liquid sits innocently at the bottom. 

“Is that…?

“Yes. And no.” 

“Huh?” 

“Yes, it’s the sample. But, I tested it several times, rechecked everything, tightened the variables, rechecked again. It’s conclusive, and get this: it isn’t blood.” 

“It’s not? What is it?”  

“2% high fructose corn syrup, 17.5% water, 3.4% citric acid, 0.9% assorted additives, and 76.2% concentrated vaccinium oxycoccos. Cranberries. It’s cranberry juice.” 

Cecil looks blank. “Cranberry juice...” he repeats.

“Cranberry juice,” Carlos confirms with a nod, frowning deeply. They stare at the sample of Anders’ blood, sitting innocently on the petri dish. 

“But it came from his mouth,” Cecil says, bewildered.

“I know. But there’s no doubt about it. It’s cranberry juice. The exact same balance of compounds as the stuff you can get in town. That’s not all though. The spit that it was mixed with?” He removes a half-full test tube from the complex, and swirls it around. “It’s 70% water, 21% glycerin and 9% extra virgin olive oil.” 

“I don’t understand. His blood is cranberry juice and his spit is...water and olive oil?” 

“Exactly. I didn’t know what to make of it, at first. And _then,_ I found this in my sleeve when I got home that night.” He holds out a petri dish, with a tiny brown spot in it. “It’s one of the freckles from that jar I broke. I tried a bunch of tests to find out what it’s made of, but all I got was it’s a non-organic substance disguised as an organic one. The sample was too small for any solid conclusion to be drawn, but, it got me thinking. Remember all those things in the lab? All the coloured liquids and the leather, and those clay things? And the - the other thing.” 

“Yeah, I remember.”

“I started thinking,” Carlos says, hands gesticulating wildly, “it was almost like a - have you ever been to Build-a-Bear?” He says, abruptly.

“What’s Build-a-Bear?” 

“It’s - wow, actually kind of hard to explain. You go there, and you choose the - the fake skin of a stuffed animal, then an assistant fills it with this white stuffing for you, and you put a little heart inside of it, then you stitch it up and choose clothes for it. They do kids parties.” 

“That sounds horrific. Who on earth would take their child there?” 

“It is quite a peculiar concept, when you think about it. But anyway, my original point was that the lab reminded me of a Build-a-Bear workshop, somehow. It’s like-” 

“Why have you even _been_ to a place like that?” 

“Stop distracting me, Cecil, I’m not _talking_ about Build-a-Bear, I’m just drawing a comparison. This is all postulation of course, but, think about it. All of the things in the lab, the liquids, and remember all those jars? Freckles? Hide treatment? _Birth marks?_ It’s like it was a production lab for building...people. Or, or, things which look like people. All of the necessary equipment was there. They were making bones out of clay, and they had some kind of leather to serve as skin, and a sewing machine, and the-” he pauses, a lump rising in his throat, “-the body, all those organs and things in the bell jars. They were like models. Blueprints.” 

A look of horror has been slowly developing on Cecil’s face as he follows Carlos’s train of thought. He gulps visibly. 

“Y’know,” he says quietly, after a moment, “I’m not a scientist or anything, but I bet I know what kind of fruit juice was in that tube with the red liquid.” 

“Exactly.” 

“But if the lab was for making... _people…_ ”

“-it’s just a theory, remember, I don’t know how they would even be able to animate something like that-” 

“-for making fake people, and Sheriff Anders’ blood is cranberry juice, and his spit is water and sunflower oil-” 

“-olive oil-”

“-then! Then that must mean they’ve...they’ve _killed_ the Sheriff…” 

“-and replaced him with a dummy of some sort. To keep up appearances. Nobody suspects a murder if the murder victim makes regular appearances at City Council meetings and school bake sales. Evidence, circumstantial though it may be, does seem to point towards that conclusion.” 

Carlos’s triumphant finish is somewhat deflated when he sees Cecil’s expression of abject horror has become mingled with genuine grief. He buries his face in his hands, and Carlos vacillates frantically, completely blindsided. He puts a hand hesitantly on Cecil’s shoulder, and Cecil rocks forward and embraces him, pressing his face into Carlos’s hair. Carlos stays stiff, like a scarecrow, for a few, panic-stricken moments, and then slowly, wraps his arms around Cecil and holds on, feeling his chest shaking with light sobs. He pats his back, and frantically searches for something more constructive to say than ‘there, there’, settling eventually on quiet, cooing, shushing sounds which he thinks his mother used to make sometimes.

“Sebastian and I have been friends for years. The Sheriff is the one who’s meant to keep us all safe _._ What are we going to do without him?” Cecil says thickly, voice muffled, and Carlos cards his fingers through Cecil’s hair, with absolutely no idea what else to do, but it seems to be enough. They stand there for what feels like a long time, until Cecil’s quiet weeping turns to uneven breathing and hiccups. When he pulls away, Carlos hesitates for a moment, and then plants a gentle kiss on Cecil’s forehead.

“We’re going to find who did this. Or what did this. I swear.” 

Cecil smiles weakly, and nods. He laces their hands together, and wraps his arms around Carlos again, resting his chin on the crown of his head. 

“Oh, Carlos. What’s happening to the town?” He says, very quietly. Carlos sighs slowly, breathing in the clean, warm smell of Cecil’s skin, face pressed to his neck.

“We’ll work it out. We will.” 

* * *

 Carlos came to Night Vale to conduct science. That is why he is there. Even if he has become more emotionally invested in the town than he ever planned, his work isn’t something he tends to sideline. Because of this, he doesn’t mind staying in the tiny provisional apartment he moved into when he first came to the town, because it’s right next to the lab. It’s worth putting up with the noise from Big Rico’s, and the deafening silence from the sand wastes, and even with the carpet in the bedroom which actually grows, like grass, and needs cutting every few weeks. It’s even worth the landlord, a laconic, middle-aged Vietnamese man who keeps leaving sometimes utilitarian, sometimes touching and sometimes excruciatingly explicit poetry written on scented paper on Carlos’s door mat.

“I think it’s rather sweet, in a creepy, Hunchback of Notre-Dame kind of way. Oh, hey, I like this one: ‘ _Transient loves are my heart’s only residents / Please stop using the roof for your science experiments.’_ Aww.” Cecil says, sifting through a pile of the things later that night, legs curled up on the sofa in Carlos’s living room/dining room/kitchen, in the shadow of a teetering stack of books about as tall as he is. Carlos stands at the stove on the other side of the room with his back turned, stirring something greenish brown over the stove. He tastes a little, purses his thick lips, and adds more milk. Big Rico seems to be having a party of some kind; the sound of dance hall music and accompanying stomping and cries of high emotion drift in from the humid night, through just one of the windows which doesn’t close properly. 

“Wait until you get to the one from last Saturday.” Carlos says, sprinkling a pinch of spices into the pot. “I think it was called ‘hot caramel’ or something like that. Might have been ‘caramel stallion’, actually.” 

“Here it is,” Cecil says. “You were right the second time.” 

Carlos looks over his shoulder, amused as Cecil’s eyes run over the page, and colour rises in his cheeks.

“On second thoughts, maybe sweet’s not quite the right word,” Cecil mutters slowly, pushing the stack away and looking at it with a shocked expression. 

“It made my eyes water, but, Mr.Nghiem is clearly wasted as a landlord,” Carlos says, ladling out the drink into two mugs. He sits down, legs arched neatly, opposite Cecil on the cramped sofa, and hands him the least chipped mug. His eyes are still rimmed in red, and every few words he hiccups, but Carlos’s attempts to distract him seem to be working alright.

“Here, drink up. It’s good for a shock.” 

To his surprise, Cecil sniffs the drink first, with a cautious expression. 

“So _now_ you don’t accept food from strangers,” he says. Cecil kicks him from across the sofa, and their ankles stay intertwined. That level of touching, Cecil thinks, Carlos seems to be able to handle without needing to think about too much. Even when they’re not in public, physical contact always seems to stall him. There’s no such thing as casual touches with him; even something as simple as their fingers crossing as something is handed between them always seems to make him pause, have to restart his thought process. Come to think of it, Cecil doesn’t thinks he’s even seen him touch _anyone_ before, not a hug or a handshake - except for Cecil, of course. Physical contact of any kind seems to be something he thinks of as a serious and deeply personal, private matter, and Cecil manages to respect that. 

Most of the time.

“What is it?” He asks, looking at Carlos his over the rim of his mug. Carlos stirs his drink, absently pressing Cecil’s ankle with his toes. 

“I told you, it’s good for shock. It warms you up, and it slows you down. At least, that’s what my PhD supervisor told me. She was a prison matriarch in Peru for ten years. Apparently they used to make it out of ground up cheerios and vegetable peel, amoung other things. With women it reduces the brunt of the effects of hormone fluctuations. It’s remarkable, actually, what people have achieved in prisons with such rudimentary resources, and in such tightly controlled environments. The sheer intricacy of the chemical knowledge amalgamated and perfected over time is fascinating, both sociologically and scientifically speaking, even more so if you take into account all…”

Cecil zones out somewhere around there, just enjoying listening to the rise and fall of Carlos’s voice as he talks about enzymes and acidity levels in the Peruvian water table. He sips the drink, which, for something which looks like bin juice, is surprisingly okay, and closes his eyes. This is an unspoken little ritual they have sometimes. Carlos likes to talk about science, and Cecil likes to listen to Carlos talk, even if he only understands glimpses, like snippets of English overheard on a foreign train platform. 

“Thank you for letting me stay over,” Cecil says, after Carlos’s soliloquizing tails away. “You didn’t have to.” 

“Hey, I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t want you here,” Carlos looks away, and has to gather some courage before he can look at Cecil and add, “I like my apartment more when you’re here. You make it feel...bigger. I mean, logically, the topography of the space is utterly unaffected by the number of people within it, of course, but through the filter of my subjective perception, what I mean, is that my apartment feels...more full when you are inside of it. Plus, it means I notice the various flora and fauna I share it with less.”

Cecil smiles into his mug, and then yawns, hugely, covering his mouth with his hand. 

“Wow. That stuff really works. I-” He yawns again, lifting up his glasses and rubbing his eyes. 

“C’mon, follow me. I think I have a spare toothbrush and everything.”

Later on, Carlos is kneeling up on his desk, peering out of the window at the strange shapes writhing in the windows of Big Rico’s. The shadows they cast on the sandy floor are monstrous, but strangely hypnotic. They move in an irregular, swaying, darting rhythm like anemones in an invisible current. He snaps out of it eventually, and clambers down from the desk, but then freezes at the foot of his bed. Cecil is lying on the left on his side, eyes already closed, torso rising and falling gently underneath the large, grey shirt Carlos found for him. His glasses sit on the bedside table. Carlos stares at them, and gulps thickly, caught off his guard. He fiddles his fingers, deliberating nervously, and then Cecil starts stirring. He blinks up at Carlos. 

“Is it a custom to sleep standing up where you come from?” 

“I-” Carlos opens and closes his mouth several times, and Cecil smiles tiredly, and holds out a hand.

“Get into bed, you big dummy, before I take up all the covers. Well, I mean, I’ll probably do that anyway? But your chances are better the faster you can get hold of a corner.” 

Carlos stands there for a second more, and then slowly, like a man getting into a very hot bath, eases himself between the covers. It’s not a large bed, but Carlos manages to do it and still initiate minimal contact between them. He pulls the cover over himself, and then lies very, very still, on his back, staring at the stained ceiling. Cecil watches him, through heavy eyelids, but being careful not to touch. He knows he frequently steps blithely over Carlos’s lines, and he knows that Carlos doesn’t really mind, not a lot any way, but this is different. There’s something secret, and oddly sacred, about the two of them being together in that tiny space, but not touching, and when Carlos’s fingertips press hesitantly against the back of Cecil’s under the covers a few minutes later, it feels as intimate as anything he’s ever experienced before. 

As their bodies curl closer together, Carlos tries to keep a catalogue of every point of contact in his head. Left hand in right hand. Knees and legs knocking and then legs finding places for each other. Cecil’s spine pressing into his chest. Carlos inhales deeply, and feels himself relax. Trying to count the bumps of Cecil’s vertebrae has the same effect as counting sheep on him, and Carlos’s falling into sleep is accompanied by the vague, only half-lucid realization that for the first time he can remember, he doesn’t feel the need to write any of this down. Unworried that this, whatever it is, will disappear.


	5. Chapter 5

“And so, the town council is advising citizens to remain in their homes for the remainder of barista culling day. Remember, folks, baristas may look like us, but they are not like us. They are a darker, less reasoned people, steeped in a bloody and desperate history. Do not approach the baristas. Do not approach the thoughts about joining them which will come to you at night. Resist, and reflect, and hide your clammy head under your pillow until barista culling day doesn’t end so much as it pauses, for an indeterminate, and possibly very short, amount of time.”

Cecil clears his throat, and shuffles his papers for a moment. He glances over his shoulder, and gives a thumbs up to the booth, where Hitomi is sitting, picking bits of glass and metal out of a flesh wound on her forearm which she got an hour ago, trying to clean the cranky printer in Cecil’s office. She drops another shard of glass from her tweezers into the dish, and gives Cecil an obscene hand gesture. 

“In other news, an abnormally and alarmingly high number of people have been reported missing in the past few weeks. Carton Donovan, one of Night Vale’s eternal scouts. Cactus Judy. Teddy Williams, the manager of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. Coach Nazar Al Mujaheed. Our own Intern Georgia. Simone Rigadeau, who lives in the Earth Sciences building. Rosa the scientist. Hiram McDaniels’ purple head. The roll-call is long, and sad. People are going missing from their beds. People are going missing from hair dressers chairs, from locked cars, from waiting rooms. Megan Wallaby, the adult man’s hand who recently merged with the body of the visitor from Nulogorsk, was was reported just this morning as having gone to the bathroom in the middle of a slumber party, and never having coming out again. More on this story, as, god forbid, it occours.”

* * *  


Carlos doesn’t mean to fall asleep in Heaven. He doesn’t actually mean to fall asleep at all, but after his scanner’s analysis of the energy readings come through first as a steaming plate of coconut noodles and then as a live sloth, he accidentally spends eleven straight hours trying to fix the stupid thing. In the end, what had started out as a relatively small, simple contraptionturns into a monster of wires and fabricators, baptised by profanity in English, Spanish and Latin which Carlos cares to remember. He falls asleep with a blowtorch in his hand, head resting on his scarf, covered in sheet after sheet of nonsensical results papers. 

He wakes up to a cool hand shaking his shoulder gently. Damson is standing over him, smiling benignly and holding a large basket of unshelled peas under one arm.

“Hey. Hey, science man, wake up. I think your machine is working _.”_

“What? It is? Oh!” Carlos sits up quickly, shaking himself awake. A long piece of violet paper is being fed slowly out of the scanner’s mouth. 

“Nice sloth,” The angel adds, holding out a pea pod to the docile creature napping on the desk. She raises her head languidly, examines the pea pod for a moment, and then takes a large, slow bite out of it. 

“You can keep her,” Carlos says distractedly. He unrolls the paper, squints at it for a few moments, and then swears loudly. 

“Is it meant to look like a bunch of squiggly circles?” Damson asks, peering over Carlos’s shoulder, as the sloth starts showing an interest in climbing the angel’s outstretched arm. 

“It’s”- Carlos sighs deeply, getting his phone out of his pocket and dialing Cecil’s number. 

“It’s in Italian.”

* * * 

“It’s not in Italian.” Cecil says, swallowing a spoonful of frozen yoghurt and frowning at the paper. Sitting across from each other in a booth of the Gravity section of the Pinkberry’s, the afternoon sun slants in through the glass and bleaches their tabletop. On the other side of the room, in the Non-Gravity section, a lone barista floats slowly past them, staring into space with a haunted expression and nursing an Irish frozen yoghurt. 

“What do you mean?” Asks Carlos, wrenching his eyes away from the barista. His own black coffee flavoured frozen yoghurt sits half eaten. “I mean, not _actual_ Italian, obviously, but is that not the same language from that night with the Sheriff?” 

Cecil unrolls the sheet of paper fully, pinning down its corners. He traces his fingers over the vaguely circular mass of lines and hieroglyphs marked on the page. The lines are a shining forest green, and Carlos thinks, shivering slightly, like tiny beams of light being broken up by dust motes. 

“It looks kind of similar, I guess. But it’s not the same. Sorry.” 

Carlos makes a frustrated noise as he scrutinises the paper again. “It’s meant to be telling us about the energy readings we picked up from that lab. I have no idea what to do with this.” 

Cecil shrugs, finishing off his frozen yoghurt. “I guess we’ll have to start looking for leads somewhere else. Maybe your machine is getting confused. There’s _a lot_ of stuff in Night Vale. Lots of radiation and other magics, that kind of thing.”

“Hmm,” Carlos says, unconvinced. He takes one last, long look at the scroll, and then starts folding it up. “Cecil, listen. I know it’s dangerous, but I honestly think we should be trying to find the laboratory again.” 

“Carlos-” 

“It’s the only lead we have left. I mean, unless you-”

“Carlos!” 

“What?” Carlos looks up, and then drops his spoon on the floor. Cecil’s tattoos have sprung off his skin, and are hovering in the air between them, shivering lightly like a raincloud or a heat-illusion. The interlocking eyes which Carlos is used to seeing planted firmly on Cecil’s skin are all blinking in succession, the lines and curls waving frantically. 

“What are you doing?” Carlos hisses, glancing over his shoulder worriedly.

“I’m not doing anything. They’re - they’re acting on their own.” 

“They can do that?” 

“I’m going to say...yes?”

Carlos jerks back into the seat with a startled noise when the shadows twirl and then shoot out through the open window, and once outside, start swishing back and forth rapidly, with a sense of urgency. 

“They want us to follow,” Cecil says, getting up and grabbing his poncho. Carlos follows suit, shrugging on his lab coat and throwing down some coins on the table. The barista’s eyes absently follow them out of the door, and then a single tear, unobserved by anybody, runs slowly down its face into its oiled black mustachios. 

Cecil’s shadows lead them hastily halfway across halfway across town, floating a few meters in front of them and moving like a swarm of bees, veering purposefully left and right. More than once, it has to slow down and turn back and wave them on, whipping around in a frenzy of impatience. 

“Have they ever done this before?” Carlos asks, having to jog every few steps to keep up. A hooded figure loiters out outside Dark Owl Records, and it turns, slowly, to watch them pass by. Just ahead, the desert bakes visibly. They can see the upper air warping with unimaginable heat, even from this distance. 

“Not that I remember.” 

“Right,” Carlos says, chewing his bottom lip in worry. He’s stopped thinking of memory as a meaningful thing since coming to Night Vale. He’s stopped thinking of a lot of things. 

Eventually, the shadows lead them into the very edge of the desert, and then stop. The area is bare; behind them, the old town looms like the memory of a bad dream, dark and full of shadows where nothing is casting them. Carlos thinks that if he looked hard enough, he might have been able to make out the plum orchard at Josie’s.

“I don’t see anything,” he says, wiping his brow. Cecil looks confused, too. He surveys their surroundings, and sees nothing but some towering cactuses, a few empty, rusting oildrums with ‘RUN: RADIOACTIVITY, PROBABLY’ stamped on the side, and not much else. Suddenly, Cecil spots something, something moving slowly from the town towards the desert, not so far away from them. For a moment, he’s unsure if it’s a mirage, but then, gradually, it resolves itself into the shape of a person, tall and stocky, walking slowly, feet dragging somnambulantly. 

“Is that - is that Megan Wallaby? The one who used to be a hand?” Carlos says, squinting. 

“She went missing yesterday. I mentioned her in the report,” Cecil says, alarmed. They start walking towards her, and her man’s outline becomes clearer. Megan Wallaby doesn’t look at them as they approach. Her broad, ape-like shoulders are partly covered by an ill-fitting fluffy, pink dressing gown, which is badly ripped and stained. Underneath, she wears nothing but a sweat-stained white shirt and shorts, her thickly muscled and tattooed arms and legs straining against their clothing. On her face is a blank non-expression; under the salt-and-pepper mustache, her mouth droops open gormlessly. 

“Megan?” Carlos ventures, as they stop, wary, a few feet away from her. Megan Wallaby doesn’t seem to realise their presence. She continues shuffling, very slowly, towards the desert, eyes fixed on a spot in the distance. 

“The slumberparty she was at was way on the other side of town, not far from the radio station,” Cecil mutters to Carlos, who has already flipped to the front of his notepad and started taking notes. “Walking at that speed, it must have taken her all night to get here. She still hasn’t learned how to use her new body very well yet.” 

As if to illustrate Cecil’s point, Megan’s foot collides with a hunk of scrap metal, and she falls sprawling into the dust. She silently hauls her enormous bulk upright again, one calf now streaming with blood, and, with the brainless determination of a machine, carries on, feet finally brushing the sand of the open desert. 

“Megan? Can you hear me?” Cecil says, tapping her on the back. Megan doesn’t respond other than to gain in speed, slightly, breathing thickly. 

“Meg,” Cecil tries, walking in front of her and talking gently. “Your parents are very worried about you. Why don’t you come on home?” 

As if swatting away a bee, Megan sweeps Cecil out of her way using her enormous, shovel-like hand, and keeps going. Then, Carlos steps in front of her, and puts his hands firmly on her shoulders and pushes. 

“Miss Wallaby, please. You have to go home. If you’ll just listen to me for-” 

Megan Wallaby’s thick-veined fist connects with Carlos’s face like a meteor from outer space. He flies several feet backwards in a perfect arc, soundlessly, almost gracefully, and lands with a dull thud in the sand. 

“Carlos!” Cecil cries, hands clapped to his mouth. He has to jump out of Megan’s way as she continues with her march out into the desert. He rushes over to Carlos, stumbling once. 

“Carlos, can you hear me?” He asks breathlessly, wringing his hands and crouching over Carlos, who has curled in on himself, apparently unconscious. Cecil freezes when he sees the hot red blood pouring from his nose, his mouth, the wide bruises already blossoming. It comes as a revelation to him that Carlos can bleed, that his skin can bruise. He hovers for a few long moments, completely nonplussed, until Carlos’s eyelids flutter, and he groans, and tries to raise himself up onto an elbow.

“Nononono, don’t move!” Cecil says, kneeling down next to him and putting a hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him back down. “I’ll get help, I’ll -” 

He searches the sky frantically for a moment until he sees his shadows, hovering restlessly above them. 

“Go! Get help,” he shouts, and the shadows are gone in an instant. Cecil turns his attention back to Carlos, and finds him looking up at him with a dazed expression. 

“¿Eres tú, Rosa? ¿Qué demonios estas vistiendo?” His voice is as thick as treacle. 

“What? No, Carlos, I’m not Rosa. Rosa is your work friend. It’s Cecil. C-e-c-i-l.” 

Cecil thinks he sees some spark of recognition in his eyes, but then a look of concern passes over his face. 

“Mis notas. ¿Dónde están mis notas?”

“Your...notes? You mean your notepad? I...I don’t know where it is. I can’t see it anywhere. It - it might have gotten caught on Megan’s dressing gown.” 

Carlos looks distraught, and tries to get up again, and looks bewildered when Cecil pushes him back down, gently. 

“Por favor, hombre, necesito mis notas. Son esencial a mis estudios de la ciudad -” 

“Okay, okay, I’ll try and get it. Just - just promise me you won’t move, okay?” 

Carlos hesitates for a moment, as if wondering whether to trust this guy or not, and then nods, once. Cecil gets up, slowly, motioning with his hands for Carlos to stay, and then makes a beeline for Megan, who in the few minutes since she punched Carlos hasn’t moved very far at all. Cecil reaches her within a few strides, and is careful not to get in her way. He circles her, and then spots Carlos’ notepad hooked by its spiral ring binding to one of her pockets. It takes him a few minutes of walking and crouching, gingerly trying to unhook it without disturbing megan, when his arm accidentally brushes her elbow, and she turns to look at him, slowly. Her eyes are almost completely black, her pupils swollen to preternatural size, leaving only a sliver of dull blue around the edges. This close to her, Cecil can see a single, shimmering line a familiar shade of forest green reflected in her pupils, so clearly that he glances at the floor, expecting to see it there, but he can see nothing but sand. A thought flickers in his head, but he pushes it down, unwilling to even try and parse it at that moment.

When Megan raises her fist again, Cecil jumps backwards, and quickly makes his way back to Carlos, who is lying spread-eagled on the floor. He turns his head when he hears Cecil’s footsteps approaching. 

“Rosa? Did you finish doing the Geiger tests on that dog park?” He asks, sounding woozy. 

“Oh my god, what happened to you? What happened to your _face_?” 

“Carlos, it’s me. It’s Cecil,” Cecil says, kneeling down. He starts gingerly wiping some of the blood off Carlos’s cheek with the sleeve of his tunic. Carlos flinches, and then looks up at the sky, and a frown knits up his forehead. 

“The stars are so beautiful out here,” he says, sounding dazed. Cecil glances up at the monochrome pale blue sky, and the only stars in sight are the spotted lights of the helicopters. 

“Oh, Carlos,” he mutters, voice shaking. He cards his fingers through Carlos’s hair, but the scientist doesn’t seem to notice. His eyes are fixed on a point somewhere far above them both.  

“I met the radio presenter again today, Rosa,” Carlos whispers, and a small, private smile crooks the corners of his mouth. “His eyes are the colour of those smudges that appear on your retinas after being blinded by a bright light.”  

At that moment, a shadow is thrown over both of them. Cecil squints upwards, and sees the angel Damson towering over them both. The shadows flicker nervously a few feet above them. 

“Damson! Oh, thank god you’re here,” Cecil rushes out, still kneeled down on the floor. “He doesn’t recognise me. First he was speaking in Spanish, and he kept calling me Rosa, and he thought there were _stars-”_

“Calm down, Cecil. He’s going to be okay,” Damson says slowly. “Breathe. No, more than that. More. A little less. Good.” 

“Okay. Okay,” Cecil says, nodding vigorously. The angel Damson crouches down next to him, golden sundisk casting a warm glow over everything. Carlos makes a panicked sound and starts trying to back away, but the angel just smiles, and gently puts its hand on his brow, as if taking his temperature

“Sleep,” it says, in a deep, honey-thick voice. “Go on to sleep. We’ll see you soon.” 

Cecil watches, hands bunched into nervous knots, as Carlos’s face relaxes, and his head tips sideways into Cecil’s lap as he falls deeply asleep. Cecil can feel hot blood leaking from Carlos’s nose into his tunic, and has to bite down on his lower lip to stop his chin from wobbling. He stays where he is, trying to hold Carlos’s head steady, while the angel arranges his limp hands so they’re facing up to the starless sky. 

“I’ll be back for you,” Damson says, voice echoing even in the empty air of the desert. Cecil nods, and watches as the angel crouches down, palms pressing onto Carlos’s, and like that, both of them are gone, and Cecil is alone in the desert. He holds an arm upwards to the sky, and his shadows spiral down like birds of prey, merging with his skin until the last one tail flicks out of sight down his sleeve. He feels them settling on his neck, his back, his legs, and, rocking backwards to sit with his arms wrapped around arched knees, he looks down at the ones on his arms. 

“It’s because we made a journey in the desert and I didn’t say the prayers,” he whispers tearfully. The eyes on his skin blink back at him mutely. In the few minutes it takes for Damson to come back and take Cecil to Heaven, he watches Megan Wallaby gets less and less distinct the further she moves into the heat of the desert, towards that point on the horizon where the green lines had converged. 

* * * 

Cecil arrives in Heaven just as Josie finishes laying out the last of a series of jagged bloodstones in a circle around Carlos’s sleeping body. He’s been laid out on one of the empty blacktop tables, and is apparently still asleep. Somebody has washed his face, and there are bruises blossoming around his nose, but other than that he looks fine, if a little paler than usual. There are still streaks of blood on his shirt and his lab coat. Josie smiles broadly when Cecil appears, looking anxious. 

“How is he?” He asks quietly, approaching the table. 

“Oh, he’ll be up and about in no time,” Josie says, hopping down from the stool she had been standing on. “Although, that Megan Wallaby must have really gone for it. The bridge of his nose and his entire left cheek bone were caved right in, bits sticking out all over the place. Don’t worry, he’ll still be pretty. Erika here helped with that.” 

Cecil notices for the first time the angel hovering at the end of the table, one of the group who tend to avoid him and Carlos. This angel is stocky, shorter than Damson, and has russet coloured wings protruding from the back of a truly hideous argyle sweater. Its face is an almost perfect circle, broken only by its antlers, and alabaster pale.

“Thank you,” Cecil says, carefully. The angel nods, glancing just briefly at Cecil. Its silvery eyes linger on Damson for a few seconds, and it smiles briefly. The argyle angel presses its own palms together, and vanishes. In the silence that it leaves behind, Cecil hears Josie laughing to herself, quietly, between murmuring guttural prayers over the bloodstones surrounding Carlos. 

“What?” Cecil asks, sitting down heavily on the chair next to the counter, and scooting it towards the table. 

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” she says quickly, but continues tittering a few seconds later. 

“ _What?_ What’s funny?” 

“Megan _Wallop_ -by.” 


	6. Chapter 6

Carlos is lost in the forest. There are bands of pale sunlight light streaming down through the canopy and onto the carpet of moss and leaves which smothers the forest floor. A bird screeches; a brook murmurs; there is no wind at all. He can see his breath, although the air doesn’t feel cold. Something brushes past his ear, a faint, drawn-out whisper, breathing _“Carlooooos.”_ He turns his head but sees nothing. 

He starts walking again, but suddenly, although he still doesn’t know where he is, he doesn’t feel lost any more. He clambers over a fallen tree trunk, and pauses to look up at the gap in the canopy which it left when it fell. The sky is livid purple. Again, that voice calls to him, from somewhere closer by now, more insistently this time, a ghostly, lilting voice which pulls him like a fish on a hook. He picks up his pace, pushing ferns out of his way impatiently, ignoring the _fascinating_ little neon tree-frogs which ribbit irritably as he pushes low-hanging branches away from his face. He starts to run. The scenery rushes past him in a blur; he alarms a small group of deer drinking from a stream, and they sprint away from him like demons are after them. He’s nearly there, gaps between the towering redwoods are appearing in the distance, part of a clearing appears - 

_“Lost in the wilderness again, Carlos?”_ says a familiar voice. Carlos screeches to a halt, chest heaving, He turns his head, feels the tendons in his neck strain, feels every vertebrae in his back shift to accommodate the movement. 

“Damson?” 

_“That’s a good name you chose for me. One of the better ones I’ve had.”_

Carlos can see the angel now, perched on a branch above his head which looks far too thin to take an angel’s weight. Damson steps into the air and lands softly, bare feet making no sound at all on the mossy floor. Carlos registers the fact that the angel is naked, but it seems so natural that he barely notices. Damson’s long, dark face wears that same familiar look of amused compassion it usually does, but something is different. It takes Carlos a moment to work out that both of Damson’s antlers are intact. They reach up towards the canopy like rejoicing arms, majestic, frightening. 

_“Just try to keep in mind that everything flows, scientist. Nothing lasts. And nothing is ever simple.”_

Carlos sees the ghost of a frown pass over Damson’s face, and then it is obscured completely as a black hood is pulled up over the angel’s face, and it vanishes into the trees. Carlos closes his eyes, rubbing them hard, and visions of ten thousand disparate realities swarm past him. A freezing, ancient, stone hallway so large that sound barely even echoes inside of it. The smell of fermentation, an empty bed. Desiccated orange peel curling in the elephant grass. A small boy sitting on a doctor’s table with white bandages over his eyes, which are pulsing with silhouettes which look like writhing red snakes, seared onto his eyeballs from looking directly at a solar eclipse.

Carlos recognises the last one with a pang, but knows that life isn’t his now. Each reality presented to him seems stranger than the last, and he can’t remember which one he’s supposed to be in, and panic begins to rise up inside him. He’s on the verge of choosing one at random when when he hears a voice, through a thick, soupy haze. 

“I think I’m figuring it out on my own, actually.” 

Carlos’s consciousness snaps back to him all at once, like an elastic band pinging back into shape. He opens his eyes, slowly, and a ceiling the colour of lemons fades into view. Carlos is lying on a sofa. He can feel the weight of what feels like at least five blankets on his body. He can smell basil, and wood varnish, and laundry detergent. _‘Cecil’s apartment’,_ he thinks to himself. 

“What are you figuring out?” He says, voice wheezier than he had been expecting. He hears a gasp, and then a voice saying, “I’ll call you back, Hitomi”, and then Cecil’s face appears upside down above him, peering down and looking happy, and concerned, and also slightly lopsided. His glasses are slipping down on the right side of his face.

“You’re awake!” Cecil says. “Finally. How are you feeling?” 

“Okay, I guess. A little disorientated.” 

Unconsciously, Carlos flinches away from the hand touching his forehead to check his  temperature, and Cecil looks slightly hurt, which leaves Carlos feeling like a massive jerk. 

“Sorry,” he mutters, sitting up properly and wincing as every bone in his spinal column cracks audibly. “Your hands are really warm. It caught me off guard.” 

“Oh. Right, yeah. Of course. I was just getting my weekly handstand quota out of the way, so my hands are probably full of blood right now. Or, well, they’re always full of blood, I guess, but there’ll be more blood in them right now? Which makes them hot? Is that how it works?” 

“More or less,” Carlos says, smiling weakly. He touches his nose tentatively, where he’s feeling a peculiar buzzing sensation. “What...what happened? I remember us finding the Wallaby girl, and then...” 

“Megan punched you in the face,” Cecil gushes, sitting down cross legged on the carpet. “You flew, like, five feet in the air, and then you started speaking in Spanish. I thought you were going to die. You scared me.” 

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Well, you didn’t die, obviously, mainly because one of the other angels helped patch your skull up. After that, Damson bought us both here, and that was, like, eight hours ago. It’s three in the morning.” 

“What? Seriously?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Why are you still awake?”

Cecil blinks, uncomprehending. “I couldn’t go to sleep while you were unconscious on my couch. What if you woke up?” 

Carlos has absolutely no idea how to respond to such a candid expression of care, and in lieu of a real answer, he glances around the room, and mutters, “Your place always smells so good.” 

“Aww. You say the sweetest things.”

Cecil’s apartment is decidedly more roomy than Carlos’s, and much less spartan. Everything is in warm, bright colours, and there are a significantly greater number of squashy pillows, woodcarvings, and opal daggers dedicated to various gods than Carlos likes at his own place. He eyes the crescent of bloodstones on top of the television mistrustfully. He had tried grinding one up not long after arriving in town, and had been found by his colleagues under the brownstone spire, half naked and in groveling hysterics, a few hours later. Never again. 

“So, what is it you’re working out?” He asks, after a few moments, and a look of quiet excitement spreads over Cecil’s face. He starts gesturing theatrically with his hands. 

“Okay. I went and looked at Megan, after she hit you, because you were asking me for your notepad, and there was this moment. I touched her arm by accident, and she looked straight at me, and her _eyes_. There was this green line, reflected in her eyes, as if it was something she could see but we couldn’t. 

“Wait, wait,” Carlos says, blinking rapidly. “A green line? Like that page of results?” 

“Exactly!” Cecil says, excitedly. He gets up, rushes to the kitchen, and comes back a minute later carrying the results page with the weird, runic circle on it. He sits down next to Carlos, and points at it animately. 

“It made me realise what this is. You said that your machine was meant to tell you about the network of energy lines around that lab. That’s exactly what this is. It’s a map of that network! But then, while I was working all this out a few hours ago, I kind of hit a dead end when I tried to connect this with Megan, because, I’m one hundred percent sure that somehow she was actually _seeing_ these energy lines, and that she was following one of them, or it was compelling her to follow it, but how? Why? It didn’t make any sense. I was trying to think of what you would do, so I left it for a while, and then I kind of got distracted, and when I came back and looked at the paper again, it looked suddenly completely different. It was like one of those optical illusions. Y’know, where at first it looks like a young woman, but then it looks like your own face, but screaming and dying of thirst? Or like when the cube suddenly-”

“Focus, Cecil.”

“Right, right, sorry. Look,” Cecil says, pointing at the center of the map, where all the lines in green ink converge, like a spider web. He traces out a shape in the converging lines at the center. “It’s a star. A five point star. The sign of the Sheriff of Night Vale!” 

Cecil looks crestfallen when Carlos shakes his head, uncomprehending. 

“You don’t get it?

“No. Sorry. What am I looking at here, Cecil?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not in the slightest, no.” 

“It’s just the Sheriff’s mind control network.” 

“His mind control network.”

“Yeah! I mean, I’d kind of thought it might have been? Before, when we were at the Pinkberry’s? But I didn’t say because I thought, if this whole thing were that obvious, Carlos would have said it already,” he says, rolling his eyes. However, when Carlos’s expression doesn’t change to one of elation, Cecil’s face falls.

“Um. Should this have been one of those weird things which I should have told you about?” 

 “Yes, Cecil,” Carlos says, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of this nose and wincing at the tenderness of the flesh there. “The impostor Sheriff’s network of town-wide mind control is probably a thing you should have told me about.”

“Oh. Sorry.” 

“Look, it doesn’t - never mind. The important thing is I know about it now. _We_ know about it now. So, the web of energy lines my scanner found around the lab was actually the Sheriff’s...” he sighs deeply before saying it, “... _mind control_ network, which is, for some reason, being used to lead random people into the desert, presumably all to the same place, for reasons unknown. I guess we can also presume that it’s the hooded figures who killed Anders and are now exploiting his network for reasons also unknown.” 

Cecil feels a pang in his chest at the last part, but nods in agreement to everything Carlos says. 

“Remember, that night in the lab? He said that the hooded figures had bribed him into showing them his office, and his instruments. I bet that means that he showed them the network’s controls or whatever.”

Carlos nods in abstracted agreement, staring down at the map with a look of concentration. “So does everyone in town know about this network?” 

“No. I mean, everyone’s hooked up to it, obviously, but I don’t think people know about it. But my tattoos, they can see it. They see a lot of stuff we don’t,” he says, with a hint of pride in his voice. 

“Do you think they could lead us to where Megan was going?” 

“Um. Probably? Maybe? It’s worth a shot.” 

“Let’s hope so. It’s all we’ve got.”

* * * 

“This isn’t working.” 

“They’re _your_ tattoos, Cecil, you should be able to control them.”

“It doesn’t work like that!” Cecil says through gritted teeth, taking his glasses off to wipe his face. They’re standing in the yard of Josie’s house, just within the protective circle of the trees. Cecil had to do the show earlier in the afternoon, so their experiment had to wait till the sky was already starting to turn pink at the edges. A short distance away, his shadows whip around in the air, letting themselves get buffeted around by the wind. “They’re not _mine,_ they just live on me. They’re completely independent beings. And they usually do what I say, but they’re not co-operating with me today, for some reason.” 

Carlos continues scribbling in his notepad. “If they did it once, they can do it again. Keep trying.  

“Ugh, fine,” Cecil says, with a sigh, and starts focussing on his tattoos again. They continue to ignore his silent pleas and commands, and Cecil huffs out a breath, frustrated. 

“You know what, this is pointless. They’re probably not doing it because they _can’t_ , and now they’re mad at me for expecting too much of them. Can we go home? Please?” 

Carlos sighs, and lowers his notepad. “Are you sure?” 

“Yeah. Seriously, if I hold my breath any longer, I might upset my throat spiders.” 

“Hey, you two,” says a familiar, resonant voice. Carlos looks over his shoulder, to see Damson approaching them from the vegetable patch with a loping gait, feathers fluttering gently in a breeze. The two of them feel the familiar sensation of their feet leaving the floor slightly as the angel comes closer. 

“Hi, Damson,” Carlos says. The large front chest pocket of Damson’s dungarees suddenly bulges oddly, and then a pair of sappy, amber eyes set in a flat face appear, squinting up at them curiously. 

Cecil gasps, clapping his hands to his mouth. “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, you’ve got a pet sloth! It’s so _cute!”_

“Her name is Mercy,” says Damson, petting the sleepy creature’s head fondly. “Here, you feed her.” 

The angel takes some soft-looking leaves out of its pocket, and hands them to Cecil, who holds them out towards the sloth and _keens_ when she takes a bite.

“She’s a long, long way from home, but she says she likes it here. Less mosquitoes, apparently. What are you guys doing?” 

“Oh, nothing, nothing. Just, y’know. Science,” Carlos says, hastily closing his new notepad. Damson’s smile widens, and then the angel’s eyes catch the movement of Cecil’s shadows swirling around not far away. 

“Oh, wow. Cecil, are you those your friends?” 

Cecil has to wrench his eyes away from the sloth to look at his shadows. 

“Sorta,” he says, inclining his head in a way that means neither yes nor no, and the angel’s smile widens even further. It beckons to the shadows, while Cecil and Carlos glance at each other, alarmed. The shadows seem to hesitate, but they approach Damson, flickering through the air like a swarm of flies. They start doing confused circuits around the angel, whizzing faster and faster until they become a blur. They dip into Mercy the sloth’s pocket momentarily, and she makes a disgruntled noise and ducks her head out of sight. 

“Sorry,” Cecil says, laughing nervously. “They’re acting up today. Also, I don’t think they really know what to make of this place. Or you, for that matter.” 

“Neither do I, some days. They were like this when they came to me for help the other day as well. Hello, Cecil’s friends. Sorry about the confusion. I’m not from around here.” 

The shadows stop spinning so fast, and seem to pause, and listen. 

“I don’t have a name. Just like you. Maybe we’re relatives,” Damson says, thoughtfully. “But anyway, your friend and the other one need your help. You see that?”

The shadows twist and bob in a way which, to Carlos, looks like nodding. 

“Why don’t you want to help? It looks to me like you’re doing it on purpose.” 

Damson cants his head to the side, watching as the shadows whip silently around in the air like a swarm of tiny, supernatural birds. 

“U-huh. U-huh. U-huh. Okay, Cecil, they say you don’t pay enough attention to them. They don’t like being treated like one of your Interns. A thank you every now and then wouldn’t go astray. And you could also afford to feed them once in a while.” 

Cecil blinks, surprised. He takes his glasses off, wipes his forehead, puts them back on. “Um. Okay. I didn’t realise they...uh...what do they even eat?” 

“Primarily, emotions. That’s why they were attracted to you. But they’re also partial to chewable sweets. Gummy bears, that kinda thing.” 

“They also want you to know that they do want to help you. They love you. They love Night Vale. They came here just like you did, and just like Carlos, and Mercy, and me for that matter. They want you to know that they led you to Megan because they saw you looking at that paper in the Pinkberry’s, and they thought you might be able to help her. They just wish you’d notice them a little more.” 

“Right.” Cecil nods.“Yeah, of course. Sorry, guys. I’ll - I’ll do better in the future.” 

The shadows dive towards Cecil and circle him happily for a moment. Habitually, he extends an arm for them to descend onto. When they merge back onto his skin, some of them move across his face, coming to sit across his eyes like a shadow. He blinks several times, and then the world darkens by several shades. Thin, trembling, green lines, hovering steadily an inch or two off the ground, criss cross wildly around him. He looks down at his own feet, and sees one there between them, leading off through a gap in the plum trees and out into the desert. Carlos has one too, but his is noticeably thinner, and flickers like a candle flame every few seconds. Damson doesn’t have one. The lines seem to curve around the angel like repelled magnetic lines. 

“Cecil? What’s going on? Oh my god, your eyes have - your pupils are huge. Can you see it?” 

“Yeah. I can see it. The lines are - wow, they’re _everywhere._ I’ve got one. You do too, by the way, but it looks kind of puny.” 

“Where are they leading?” 

“They’re all going in the same direction. Out there,” he says, pointing.

“Okay. This is good. This is...” Carlos runs a hand through his hair, other hand on his hip, nodding slowly. “We can use this. We just have to follow the lines out, find where they lead, and we should be able to find out what exactly the hooded figures are up to.” 

“And find all the missing people,” Cecil adds, Carlos nodding in agreement. 

“Wait,” Damson says, suddenly. Cecil looks up in surprise at his sharpness. A shadow has fallen over Damson’s usually serene face. 

“You’re planning on just walking out into the desert?” 

“Well...yeah,” Cecil says, slightly lamely.

“Damson, let me explain. We think someone is using the Sheriff’s mind control network to abduct people,” Carlos says, calmly. “It’s what was making Megan Wallaby walk out there, and we’re assuming it’s what made all those other missing people do the same thing. Whoever’s doing this, they’ve replaced Sheriff Anders with some kind of puppet. We have reason to think the hooded figures are behind it.” 

A pregnant silence follows Carlos’s speech. Damson stares at them with an unfathomable expression. Mercy the sloth pokes her head back outside, blinking languidly, and Damson pats her head distractedly. A deep sigh rumbles out of the angel’s chest. 

“Okay, listen,” Damson says, eventually. “There’s a story you need to hear.”  


	7. Chapter 7

_The travelers came in the night time, carrying their lives on their backs. They were few. The children and the elders had long since turned into piles of sand by the time the few arrived in the middle of the desert. Their journey had made them strange, harsh things. Their language had changed. Their eyesight was poor, but their sense of smell was razor sharp. Their concepts of beauty and justice had warped and been fatigued by the desert heat. The meat crowns which they wore on their heads had not been cured, and they dripped gore over their dark, leathered faces. But this place. This place that they had come to was something different. The air was crisp, and didn’t blister their skin, even at midday. It had rained the night before, and the water they collected in their earthen amphoras was different from the rain elsewhere in the desert- the purple sky was going to give them more, soon. The promise of plenty was a cooling balm on their awful, awful hearts. Around them, they saw desert, mountains, void - and plum trees._

_The night the travelers became settlers, the black desert air was filled with howled invocations, squalls in the night from people who had long since forgotten how to pray._

 

* * *  


“Do you know why Night Vale is called Night Vale?” The angel Damson asks. The three of them are sitting in the shade underneath the huge old oak tree, with its strange carvings and fruitless boughs. Cecil sits with his knees arched, arms around them loosely, Carlos with a notepad on his awkwardly crossed legs. Damson is shelling peas again, dropping them into a metal basin with tinny plink-plinking sounds every few seconds, and not far away, Mercy the sloth swings from the branches of one of the plum trees. The four of them cast a very peculiar shadow on the soil.  


“It comes from the name of my people. The Night folk. We were guardians of this desert before the humans came. We were here so long before that. And when they did come, carrying all those things with them, we...we weren’t all that welcoming. But they struck a deal with us. They didn’t want to leave, see. This is a nice place, and we knew that, and they knew that, but nobody wanted a real fight, so in the end we agreed to share. They would build their town between the Gorge and the scrublands, where we never went anyway, and we would keep the sand wastes, and the mountains, and the plum trees.” 

“The plum trees?” 

“Yeah. These are very old trees. We planted them to protect this one-”, Damson nods his head towards the huge old oak tree , “-and they other one which used to stand next to it. See the way this one arches like that, like half a bridge? The other one used to cross it at the top, like a doorway. It _was_ a doorway. See, we were the guardians of this desert, but we ain’t actually _from_ here. We just liked it a lot, kind of like Mercy. This is a special place.”

They all glance upward at Mercy, chewing leaves with a dignified expression on her face. 

“It’s kind of hard to explain where it is we came from, but we didn’t have bodies there. We were spirit. When we found this place, though, we wanted to be able to...feel it. We liked having bodies, and we started spending more and more time in them, but still, it’s not really in our nature to stay like this for too long. So the archway, the archway was what we used to go back and forth between one form and the other. There were never very many of us, but we decided that half of us should tend to one of the oak trees, and half of us to the other. We had to be careful, to make sure that they both stayed healthy, because if either of them died, we wouldn’t be able to get back into our spirit forms.

Anyway. We lived like that for a while, us and the humans. It was okay. It was okay until they started building out in the sand wastes, in land we agreed would be ours. We asked them to stop. They said okay, but then they carried on in secret, thinking we wouldn’t find out. We told them to stop again, so they built a huge wall around their new buildings and stood around it with weapons, as if they thought that would stop us. So a few of us went in and razed the walls and the new buildings to the ground, turned it back into sand. We never imagined what they would do. Not for one second.”

***

 _The angel was fishing in a mountain stream, late in the day. It had its bare feet dangling in the fast-flowing, sediment-rich water, and wore only a thin, dark blue shift. The pale brown, barn owl wings which emerged from its back shone in the sun. From its vantage point on the mountain, it could see the human town, which had grown so much since the travelers found this place. The town shivered in the heat. Next to it, the dark bruise of the buildings which the angel and its kin had razed to the ground not long before. The human watched from a rocky outcropping nearby while he caught his breath - the stream was a long way up the mountain, and the bag he carried on his back was heavy. While he was doing this, the angel caught a fish on its line, a barrel-chested monstrosity which looked like it had been beaten out of scrap iron. The human watched as the angel, humming a tune, murmured a prayer and then threw the fish into the air and deftly skewered it through the eye on one of its antlers. For a moment, the human hesitated, unsure, watching as the fish’s body spasmed once, twice, and then was still. There was a moment of doubt as he imagined himself impaled on those spikes. But then he steeled his heart, and approached._  
  
_When the angel spotted the human, it felt a dull thud of unfamiliar fear. Its thoughts instinctively went to its kin, down in the orchard. The human made its way down to the bank of the river, and then, once it was a few feet away, knelt down respectfully in the mud, knees pressed into the rich black soil._  
  
_“Hello. I’m from the town. I have some things for you. They’re gifts. May I...?”_  
  
_The angel said nothing, only continued to stare at the human with apprehension. It was getting late. But then the human shifted slightly, and the angel saw the bag on its back. Here is a fact about angels which not many people know - they are ravenously curious. It nodded, once, and so the human walked over, slightly awkward on the uneven ground, and handed the bag to the angel. He spoke while the angel opened it up, peering inside, not seeming to notice that its fishing line was being tugged._  
  
_“I - we wish to convey our shame, and our apologies.” The human said, looking down at its feet. It watched out of the corner of its eye as the angel bought out the neat brown paper packages._  
  
_“We betrayed your trust, we betrayed your kindness. It won’t happen again, but the townsfolk are giving gifts to you and the other Night people as tokens of our hope that we can restore peace between our people. And as another token of our gratefulness for your understanding, we’ve named our town after you. It’s called Nightville now.”_

_The angel opened one of the packages, and found it was full of dried, spiced cows meat. It smelled smoky and rich, and the angel, which had never eaten cows meat before, found its mouth watering. It opened up the other packages with less caution. They contained dried fruits, pressed flowers, and a tiny, exquisite plum tree, carved from bloodstone. The angel looked up at the human, who was still kneeling in the mud, expression hopeful and penitent. He promptly became the first human ever to touch an angel, as the angel reached out its hand, and helped him off the floor._

** *

“They targeted just one group of us, all of the ones who were meant to be looking after the other tree _._ Waited until they were alone, then approached them with an apology. Told them the humans were sorry, that they were trying to make peace. Bought with them all these gifts, invited them to the town and showed them around. Made them curious. Made them resentful of being stuck out here in the wastes, tending fruit trees and whatnot, not making the most of having a body. Those angels started spending less and less time out here, less and less time in their real forms, and more and more time in the town, with the humans. And eventually, one night - well, there was a festival, see.”  
  
* * *  
  
_The angels who attended the festival were draped with chains of flowers and painted rat-skulls on strings as soon as they entered the town. The humans had spent months constructing the bonfires, carving the idols, pressing the wine, and the entire town gathered in a wide open space to eat and to drink, to tell the stories, to dance the dances, to sing the songs and to remember. The angels sat with them, entranced by the performances. And later, they promised to make a performance of their own._

 _When the time came, the angels put down their wine, spread their wings and soared into the warm desert air. They made broad circles, falls and lifts, tight spirals in perfect harmony with one another - the sacred dance of the Night folk was an expression of pure emotion. When they landed, breathless, the sand now strewn with stray feathers, they were met with a moment of utter silence. The humans glanced at one another, and a second of indecision passed, like a moth over a light. They had all felt it, the stirring remnants of things which the angel’s dance had called back to life inside them. Some of them were crying. Some of them were stone-faced. But they all recalled those terrible years of wandering, and they all recalled the smoking ruins of their planned development, and they all recalled the plan. In the next second, they started laughing, and the laughter was cruel and humourless. The Nights were bewildered and hurt. The angel who had been fishing on the mountain spoke._  
  
_“Why are you laughing?” It asked. It was addressing that first human, its friend who had bought it the meat._  
  
_“It’s just - your wings,” the human said, glancing from side to side and giggling with embarrassed laughter. “They just look so...goofy.”_

_The other humans nodded, eagerly._

_“And those circle things on your heads, what’s_ that _all about?”_

 _“And the_ antlers! _How you get folks anything done with those big ol’ things on your heads is a mystery to me.”_

 _And that was all it took, in the end. The angels who had gone to the festival were ashamed and appalled by themselves. They left the town they had fallen in love with in a state of great distress - they left on foot. The next morning, they met again, far, far out in the wastelands. Few of them had ever been this far from home before. They carried horrible things with them._  
  
_The antlers went first. They had all accumulated collections of human artifacts, and someone had collected a saw. The angel who had spoken the night before was the first to kneel by the rock they had chosen. It lowered its head, and ground its knuckles into the dirt as one of the others sawed off its antler. The severed, chestnut lightning-bolt was dropped carelessly onto the sand next to the angel. It stared. Tears started rolling down its dark face, and it grabbed the antler, uselessly trying to reattach it to its head. The other angels watched for a moment, and then they carried on. They barely noticed when the one-antlered angel flew away, leaving its severed limb on the floor with the others._

_ The pile of antlers once they were done looked like an excavated boneyard. They left them there to bleach in the sun. The sundisks were next; they shattered like spun sugar with just one hit. The wings were the hardest. They had to take it in turns to hold each other down while they were sawed off and the wounds were cauterised - there’s some kinds of pain that can’t do anything but perpetuate themselves. Feathers flew. Bones crunched. Their agony pierced dimensions; a creature in another realm raised its head and wondered what that noise could be. After only an hour, the dirt was so rich with angel’s blood that green shoots had already started growing from it.  _

 

* * *

 

“Their regret didn’t take long. But it was useless. What was done was done.”

Damson pauses. The unshelled peas sits at the angel’s side, utterly forgotten.   
  
“They found out pretty soon that they couldn’t get back into their spirit forms, after what they’d done to their bodies. They fled, after that, too ashamed and too bitter to come back here. And what would the point be, anyway? Their tree started dropping its leaves when they started cutting off their antlers, and it was dead by the time the last wing was off, so none of us could go back anyway. The settlers had got what they wanted. They started building further and further out into the desert, and there was nothing those of us left here could do. We didn’t care anymore. We couldn’t get back into our real forms. We were trapped here. Have been ever since.”

“Where did they go?” Carlos asks quietly, after a moment a silence. “The others.” 

Damson looks up at them, smiling thinly. 

“Did you never wonder what a hooded figure looks like under that hood?” 

Cecil gasps, hands flying to cover his mouth. “Do you mean-”

Damson nods grimly.“The hooded figures are our brothers and sisters. They’re angels. Lobotomised. Only Half-folk. They cover themselves to hide their mutilation, and they hate humans with the kind of passion that only springs from jealousy and longing, and they live amoung you, hating, wanting. From what you’ve said though, it seems like that has somehow stopped being enough. I don’t know what they’re planning, or what use they see in taking people out into the desert. But no good is going to come from this. Only more pain, only more separation.”  
  
“Not if we can stop them. And we _can_ stop them, now we know what they are,” Carlos enthuses, getting to his feet. Cecil follows suit. He watches Carlos pace, with a building sense of consternation.  
  
“Carlos, you have to understand,” Damson says slowly, still on the ground. “There is no us and them here. The hooded figures are my kin. And they might only be Half-folk but they’re still very powerful. The others?” The angel indicates to the small group of angels standing around outside Josie’s house, “They won’t help you. They don’t want anything to do with anybody.”  
  
“What about you, Damson?” Carlos asks eagerly. “You can help us. Help us find a way to stop this. People are going missing from their beds, from their homes! We can’t just sit around and not do anything because of - because of the past.” 

Damson’s head is already shaking before Carlos finishes. “They’re kin. I don’t care what mistakes they made, or what stupid plan they’ve cooked up now. Underneath those hoods they’re still my people, and they’re sad and scared _._ ”  
  
“But they’re _kidnapping people_ , Damson!” Carlos says, riled, hands gesturing wildly. “They could be _killing_ them! You saw what they did to Megan Wallaby, you saw what they made her do to me. But we can’t go up against them without you.How can you just sit here, while out there-”  
  
Carlos cuts off when Damson stands up suddenly. At full height, the angel casts a shadow which smothers Carlos, even when he takes an involuntary step back. Wings spread slightly, full lips grim, golden bands of midday sun reflecting out from its sundisk like the hours on a clockface - to Cecil, standing quietly a few paces away, the angel Damson has never looked less human.  
  
“I will not do this, Carlos,” Damson says quietly. “I won’t stop you if you want to go ahead with your plan. But don’t ask me to help you hurt my kin.”

It’s only when he feel a bump on the soles of his shoes that Cecil realises he and Carlos had been floating several inches off the ground while Damson was speaking. 

“I’m sorry,” Carlos mutters. Damson nods, and a pale imitation of the angel’s usual smile passes over its face.  
  
“Apology accepted,” it says. “Come on, Mercy. Time to go back home. Looks like rain.”  

Damson raises an arm up into the plumtree, and Mercy the sloth is carefully transferred onto a pair of broad, angelic shoulders. While she’s finding a comfortable position, Damson, neck bowed slightly to accommodate a wriggling four-toed sloth, reaches out for Carlos’s hand, expression gentle. Carlos hesitates for a moment before offering it, and the angel envelops it in both of its own, and then Carlos hears a sonorous voice inside his own head:  


_“Don’t forget what I told you when you first came here, scientist. Make sure your brain doesn’t run away and leave your heart behind, or you’ll start running out of people who will want to forgive you.”_

He sees a brief vision of Cecil, limping through the desert, leaning heavily on that ridiculous crutch. Then it’s gone, and Damson is mussing his hair with a laugh, and loping away, Mercy in tow. He and Cecil are left standing in the shade of the plum tree, and Carlos, venting his frustration, aims a kick at the plum tree. In return it showers overripe plums down on their heads, and then Carlos feels Cecil’s hand on his shoulder, gentle and hesitant. Cecil looks concerned. But more than that, he looks tired. For one of the first times in his life, Carlos finds the touch comforting. He leans into it, just barely, as the first, fat raindrops start darkening the soil.

“We were so close,” he says, hanging his head.  
  
“I know.” Cecil mutters, squeezing his shoulder. “But this is so much bigger than us, Carlos. We barely made it out alive last time, and I don’t think we can expect on that kind of luck again. Heck, maybe this doesn’t even have anything to do with the hooded figures. Maybe all those people just...decided to take a vacation.”  
  
Carlos raises an eyebrow, but can’t quite suppress a smile. “Maybe, yeah.”  
  
“Come on.” Cecil says, turning towards the desert. He seems to know intuitively not to acknowledge it when Carlos hesitantly takes his hand. “Let’s get home.”

  
***

By the time they make it through the door of Cecil’s apartment, both of them are drenched through to the skin. Peeling his labcoat away and hanging it up to drip-dry on a radiator, Carlos doesn’t think he even remembers what it’s like to feel dry.  
  
“Ugh,” Cecil says, wiping his water-spotted glasses on his sleeve and only succeeding in making them even dirtier than they were before. He grimaces, and pockets them.  
  
“Monsoon season. Gross.”  
  
“Hey, you know what’s grosser?”  
  
“What?” 

 “Come here,” Carlos beckons for Cecil to come closer, waits till he’s standing on the _Welcome!_ mat with him, and then shakes his head like a dog, hair throwing droplets of water everywhere. They pepper the wallpaper like tears, and he laughs his high-pitched laugh as Cecil backs away with a surprised squeal, blinking water out of his eyes.

  
“Ugh, you’re disg-”  
  
There’s no warning when it happens. One moment, Cecil is wiping his face with his sleeve, the next he feels a wave of heat all along the front of his body, the light is blotted out, and then Carlos’s mouth is on his.

Now, they’ve kissed before. They’ve kissed a hundred times before, but it’s never been like this. Usually, it’s careful and measured; usually, Carlos treats kissing like one of his experiments, and more than once Cecil has caught him scribbling things down in his notepad afterwards. But there’s nothing premeditated about the way that he pushes Cecil against the wall now, one hand holding the turn of his jaw as he presses his lips against Cecil’s. There’s nothing careful about the hint of tongue insinuating itself between Cecil’s lips, or the anger behind it, ebbing gradually into something more warm, less caustic. And there’s nothing restrained about the hand which snakes its way up the front of Cecil’s tunic to roam over the dip in his chest, over his waist, the patch of damp skin between his shoulder-blades. Carlos’s burning hot fingertips come to rest in the small of Cecil’s back, and then he pulls insistently, bringing the lines of their bodies closer. Their clothes are still soaking wet, and Cecil’s hair is dripping down his neck and shoulders, and it should be gross but it’s not. Cecil fists his hand in Carlos’s hair and uses his height advantage to tip his head backwards and press a string of open-mouthed kisses along the column of his throat. 

 

                                                                                                               *    *    *

  
Carlos wakes up sometime before dawn, alone in Cecil’s bed. The sky outside is still dark - not that that means anything, not here - and the sheets behind him where Cecil had been are still warm. His throat feels hoarse. He can hear movement somewhere just outside the door, and then Cecil appears, momentarily silhouetted in the yellow rectangle of light in the doorframe. He shuffles across the room in his bare feet, yawning hugely. 

 “Where’d you go?” Carlos mutters, rolling over to get a better view of Cecil clambering back into bed. 

“To hang our clothes up. The faceless old woman would do it otherwise, and then I’d feel bad. Scootch up.”  
  
Cecil slides back under the covers, arms wrapping around Carlos’s torso, his chin coming to rest on the top of Carlos’s head. He mutters something about big spoons and little spoons which Carlos, already drifting into that space between sleeping and waking, doesn’t hear properly.  
  
He dreams about being lost in the forest again. It’s a dream he’s been having a lot, recently. He steps over the same brook; the same bird screeches; there’s no wind, again. When the voice starts calling to him, he’s expecting it, and he starts running after it sooner this time, determined to get reach it. He breaks the ferns as he pushes them out of his way, ducks under the low-hanging branches, scares the life out of the deer drinking at the spring. The light of the clearing appears in the distance, and he fixes his sights on it, sure that he’s finally going to make it this time. He sees movement, a swirling blackness, the sound of deep, rhythmic chanting in a language he doesn’t understand-

Carlos wakes up. He wakes up disorientated, and confused, struggling with the dissonance between the smell of rotting wood and rain, and the clean, fresh scent of the bedding. He can see a creeping pinkness to the sky outside. Cecil is still asleep. Sprawled on his belly, face pressed into the pillow, he sleeps in complete silence and complete stillness. Carlos follows the lines of his tattoos, which seem to be sleeping too; the tapered lines are still, and most of the eyes are closed, the two or three that are still open blinking slowly, almost groggily. They travel in a column up along his spine, and split into two at his shoulder blades to curl around his arms in helter-skelter spirals. Cecil murmurs something in his sleep and shifts slightly, eyelids fluttering, and a sensation starts expanding high up in Carlos’s chest. After a few seconds, he convinces himself that it’s panic, and he sits up in bed, swallowing hard and pressing a hand to his collarbone as if trying to push it back down, or else, summon it straight out through his skin and banish it. Either his impromptu exorcism works, or the feeling was only some kind of just-woke-up vertigo, but either way, the moment passes. It passes, but it leaves him shaken. He gets up to make them something to eat without another glance at Cecil’s sleeping body.

After thirty minutes in the kitchen, ‘something to eat’ becomes ‘something they’re still going to be eating a week from now.’ From the takings he manages to extract from around the room - they need to have a serious talk about why Cecil has a loaded crossbow his fridge - he manages to scrape together a spiced tortilla, but then he doesn’t seem to be able to stop. Some kind of nervous energy starts welling up inside, so  so he starts looking for other things to make. When Cecil finally pads into the kitchen, he stops, and blinks, and for a moment wonders if he has accidentally woken up inside somebody else’s reality again. Every single pot and pan that he owns seems to be out. Carlos doesn’t notice him coming in. His back is to the door, and his shoulders underneath the thin t-shirt he borrowed from Cecil are bunched together as he kneads a chunk of dough against a floured surface.

“Hey,” Cecil says, padding over to stand just behind Carlos, who jumps slightly at the sound of his voice. He twists around, and gives Cecil a brief, wide-eyed look before going back to kneading the dough.  
  
“Oh. Hi.”  
  
“You making bread?” Cecil asks, peering over his shoulder with interest.  
  
“Yeah, I just wanted to...” He peters off, grunting slightly as he pushes the heel of his fist into the dough, once, twice, three times, and then jumps so violently at Cecil’s hand on his waist that he knocks a bag of flour onto the floor.  
  
“Woah, hey, I’m sorry,” Cecil says, taking a step back, hands up by his head. Carlos looks at the flour, at the mess he’s made of the kitchen, out of the window, anywhere but at Cecil, and then turns back to the counter, pressing his knuckles into the dough again. He clears his throat.

“I’ll clean that up.”   
  
Cecil watches him knead the dough for a few seconds. The warm feeling he had woken up with has all but gone, vanished in a puff of flour. He leans against the counter next to Carlos, fighting the instinct to put a hand on his shoulder, or to tuck the loose strand of hair hanging over his eyes behind his ear. 

“Is - is everything okay?” 

When Carlos doesn’t reply, just keeps kneading the dough with his shoulders bunched up, Cecil starts getting annoyed. 

“You know this is meant to be a two-way thing, right?” 

He watches Carlos kneading for another silent second, and then waves his hand in front of Carlos’ face. 

“Helloooo? Anybody home? No? Okay, well, I’ll leave a message then: just a quick reminder that _I can’t read your mind, Carlos!”_

Carlos flinches, and finally looks up, and the look on his face is evasive. He can’t seem to hold Cecil’s eyes for more than a few seconds. When he looks away again, it feels like a slap in the face. 

“Fine,” Cecil mutters, pushing away from the counter. “Do what you want and leave me to catch up, like always. I’m going to work.” 

Carlos watches Cecil close the door with slightly too much force a few minutes later, feeling as hollow as a bell. A curtain of black smoke from something he had forgotten was cooking starts pouring out of the oven.

 

* * *

 

When Cecil switches the microphone off after the show that day, Hitomi is standing in the doorway, looking at him with her eyes narrowed. 

“What crawled up _your_ butt and died?” She asks, watching him run both hands through his hair. 

“Firstly, that’s gross, and secondly, nothing,” he says defensively, and then sighs heavily when Hitomi looks unimpressed. 

“I guess that wasn’t my best show,” he admits.

“Not your best show? I’ve been fielding calls for the last thirty minutes, people asking what was going on , if there was anything they could do to make the man on the wireless sound less like someone had just pissed on his parade. Your niece Janice called, after whatever the hell that was that you did during the traffic report. You scared her, Cecil.” 

“Great,” Cecil says, banging his forehead against the desk. “Now I feel guilty too.” 

He hears Hitomi sigh, and then a moment later, her hands are gently prising the headphones off his head. 

“Come on. You need a drink.” 

  
* * *

  
“It’s not even that he was acting like a total butthead, it was that he wouldn’t even look me in the eye, you know?” Cecil says, throwing down the rest of his Singapore sling and slamming the glass back down on the sticky bar. He hiccups, and wipes his mouth with his sleeve. Across from him, Hitomi is nursing her fourth glass of death with blackberries floating in it. She nods thoughtfully, one eye on the bottles lined up behind the bar.

“It was the fact that he wouldn’t even _say_ anything to me, and after we - after we-” 

“Took the plunge? Did the mango tango? Made bananas and cream?”

Cecil snorts loudly, and the bartender pauses from checking the dusty bottles of drink for whiskey-eels to shoot the two of them a dirty look. 

“Yes. After that. The last one. It just felt special - it _was_ special, I mean, we waited long enough, and then he just ignored me in the morning. Like - like we’d done something gross, or, or I’d done something gross to him.” 

“Wait. Wait wait wait.” Hitomi cuts him off with a wave. “You’re saying you two had _never_ done it before?” 

“Well...no, not exactly.” 

“ _Seriously?_ But you’ve been going out for forever! What, does he wear a chastity belt?”

“No! I don’t know! He’s just weird about...contact. Like, he pulls away super fast if you touch him when he’s not expecting it, and I always get the feeling that he’s quietly freaking out whenever we do _anything_ that involves touching, even when it’s not the sexy kind of touching. This morning, when he was making the bread, I touched him for, like, half a second, and he knocked a whole bag of flour on the floor.” 

“So, you know he’s sensitive about touching, but only _now_ you’re getting mad about it?” Hitomi asks quizzically. Cecil bristles. 

“Yeah, I’m mad about it! And I’m allowed to be, because, I thought he was over it! Or, at least, that he was over not communicating with me about it, you know?” 

“I guess. Well, if he’s really as much of a princess about touching as you say he is, then he was probably just having a hard time bouncing back into his comfort zone after you guys did the nasty. Yeah, you have a right to be mad, but he also has a right to be weird, Cee. Like Confucius said, you have to suffer your friends the things they suffer from themselves.” 

She frowns suddenly. 

“Actually, that might be from Spiderman. Whatever. The point is, order another one of your super embarrassing fruity cocktails, then in the morning you should to go and explain to him why you were pissed. You said you can’t read his mind, but he can’t read yours either, so you go and build that bridge. Then at least you’re on the moral high ground, and, heck, you might even get some make-up sex thrown in there as a boner. Bonus! I meant bonus.” 

“Nah, you meant boner,” Cecil snickers, laughing when she elbows him hard in the ribs. 

 

* * *

  
When Cecil wakes up the next morning, he’s convinced that the heavy, roiling sensation in his stomach is a hangover. It takes him a full half hour of staring at the ceiling of his bedroom to realise that the feeling is actually dread, and after that, things only start to move slower. He showers in the small, high-ceilinged bathroom, wishing the water could make him feel clean on the inside as well as the outside. Squinting as the suds pour down his forehead towards his eyes, he runs a cloth gently over his tattoos, muttering a groggy apology as the eyes blink up at him reproachfully when he accidentally rubs soap into them. He stays in the shower for longer than is really excusable, perfectly unwilling to face the day. Instead, he tilts his head into the water and just stands there until the walls are shining with condensation, and his boiler is making ominous groaning sounds, right up until he’s forced to get out by the glistening mass of earthworms writhing out of the plughole - probably the faceless old woman’s way of letting him know that she thinks he’s being irresponsible by using so much hot water. 

After he throws on his favourite tunic, and eats, and calls Hitomi to make sure she got home alright, and whispers his secret dreams to his bloodstone circle, he can’t think of anything else he can do to stall. Steeling himself, he takes a moment to clean his glasses, and then opens the front door. 

Carlos is standing on his doormat, completely still, looking to all the world as if he could have been there for hours. Cecil, blindsided, can’t think of anything more constructive to say than “Uh,” which hardly seems to matter, because a moment later Carlos launches forward, fists his hands in Cecil’s tunic and kisses him into breathlessness. Cecil’s back connects with the half-open door, and he has a serious episode of déjà vu remembering the other night. Carlos had come on strong then, too, hadn’t left any space for anything else, and had recoiled right afterwards. 

Cecil puts his hands on Carlos’s shoulders and pushes firmly. Carlos pulls back, but only for a second, enough time to pull them both inside, close the door and to jump at him again. He starts laving kisses along the line of Cecil’s jaw, grazing teeth against his earlobe, hands gripping his hips, and Cecil nearly  \-  _really_ nearly - gives in, wanting badly to, but he puts his hands back on Carlos’s shoulders and pushes again, more insistently this time. Carlos’ mouth comes away from the turn of Cecil’s jaw with a wet sound, and the expression on his face is hurt, frightened, guilty, confused and aroused all at once. 

“Woah there,” Cecil says, breathlessly. “Slow down, slow down. What are you doing?” 

“Apologising,” Carlos replies, one hand still digging into Cecil’s hip.

“ _That_ was an apology?”

“I - I mean, no, I was going to apologise properly, after, I just-” 

“Were you?” Cecil says, eyebrows raised, “Or were you just going to ignore me again?” 

Carlos suddenly looks very uncomfortable. He lets go of Cecil’s hip, but doesn’t seem to have anything to say. He just stands there in the bright morning light coursing in through the window, looking and feeling lost. Cecil sighs, softening, and reaches out to brush his fingertips through Carlos’s hair where it’s sticking up at the side.

“I’m sorry,” Carlos mutters, looking up at him, “Really, I’m sorry I ruined yesterday. I’m not so good this part, and after - I guess I kind of freaked out. I’m sorry,” he repeats, slightly lamely. 

“It’s okay. Just...don’t shut me out like that again, okay? At least, not without telling me why.” 

Carlos nods, looking profoundly relieved, and Cecil can’t help but kiss him then, to transfer his hand in Carlos’s hair to his waist and kiss him senseless. 

 

* * *

 

“You didn’t ruin it,” he murmurs into Carlos’ shoulder, his voice bouncing off the tiled walls of the bathroom. The midday sun streams in through the fogged up windows, illuminating the two of them standing next to the (now earthworm-free) tub and dripping onto the floor. Cecil has his head bowed, letting Carlos towel his hair dry.

“Before, you said you’d ruined the other night. You didn’t ruin it.” 

“I kind of did,” Carlos says, rubbing the towel against the soft hair just behind the shell of Cecil’s ears.

“You kind of didn’t,” Cecil counters, looking up, hair standing up in all directions. “That was just the morning after, and god knows we’ve all had our bad mornings after. And besides,” he says, face breaking into a grin, “- you totally made up for it just now, when-” Carlos throws the towel over Cecil’s head before he can finish his sentence, muffling his laughter. 

Cecil ends up showering three times that day. 

Later, they order in their mandatory weekly pizza from Big Rico’s, and argue over whether the oozy, gently pulsating objects covering it can really be classed as ‘olives’. Their bickering is silenced by a roll-call on the radio of all the people who have gone missing over the past few days since Cecil last made an announcement; Leann Hart, editor of the Night Vale Daily Journal; Sarah Sultan, president of the Community College and fist-sized river rock; Marcus Vanston, who had disappeared while bathing in his personal waterfall; even Cecil’s old friend Earl Harlan, who had apparently walked out of the back door of _Tourniquet_ while right in the middle of the dinner rush, accidentally leaving the spring onion cage unlocked, resulting in the mauling of at least six kitchen staff.  

“That was some story Damson told us earlier, huh?” Cecil says through a mouthful after a few minutes of silence. Carlos nods, dislodging the ‘olives’ from his slice and rolling them on Cecil’s plate, being careful not to touch them. 

“Yeah. And, scientifically speaking, absolutely fascinating, of course. What Damson said about this area being almost...magnetic. How people are drawn to it. The Night folk, the settlers, your tattoos, Mercy -” 

“You,” Cecil adds with a smile. 

“I bet it has something to do with all the unusual radiation surrounding the desert basin Night Vale is in. The Sheriff’s mind control network-” he still can’t say it without sighing and rolling his eyes, “-is just one layer in the swamp of energy this place is sitting right in the middle of.” 

“Ooooor,” Cecil says, drawing the word out with a thoughtful expression, “Maybe it’s just a special place, like Damson said. Maybe all your stuff about your energies and dark magics is just...Night Vale.”

Carlos is about to protest that, actually, he didn’t say anything about magics, when there’s a sharp knocking on the door. He glances at Cecil’s surprised looking face with consternation. It’s a special day in Night Vale when knocking on your door late at night is good news.

“I’ll go,” Carlos says, putting his half-eaten pizza down on the table, next to a woodcarving of Khoshekh. Cecil watches him pad to the front door and glance through the peephole, and, inexplicably, he snorts when he sees whoever it is standing on the other side of the door. He throws a grin at Cecil, eyes crinkled up with silent laughter.

“What?” Cecil whispers, alarmed. “Who is it?” 

“Hello? Anybody home?” a muffled voice calls from the hallway, and Cecil covers his face with his hand and groans loudly. 

“Oh my god, noooo-” 

“It’s me, Steve Carlsberg-”

“Don’t let him in,” Cecil hisses to Carlos, who is laughing into his hand. Steve’s voice calls again, sounding somehow _even more annoying_ without his face attached to it. 

“Cecil, I really need to talk to you-” 

“Tell him I’m dead,” Cecil whispers urgently to Carlos, “Tell him I had to go to the library for something and the faceless spectre made me sweat out all my blood. And tell him that my last words were that he’s _the worst_ and that _I don’t want to see him!”_

“I can hear you, Cecil-” 

“Go away!” Cecil yells, and Carlos snorts through his hand, eyes crinkled up with laughter. 

“Please,” Steve’s voice says imploringly, “It’s Janice. She’s - she’s gone.”

Carlos’ laughter dies in his throat. Cecil, wide-eyed with alarm, jumps off the sofa and opens the door, revealing a harrowed looking Steve Carlsberg, his customary baseball cap screwed-up in his hands. 

“What do you mean, she’s gone? What did you _do,_ Steve?” Cecil demands, looking murderous. 

“Nothing, I swear!” Steve says, wringing his hands. His face has gone the colour of cottage cheese, and his hair is ruffled and unwashed. “We all had lunch together this afternoon, and then Janice went to her room to do her homework. I was out in the yard working on this cool go-cart she designed for herself which we’ve been building together, and Abby was upstairs meditating on the transience of consciousness like the City Council mandated last Tuesday, and when I came back inside a little while later, Janice was just - gone! Didn’t take anything except her chair, left the front door wide open and everything. We’ve looked everywhere but - but -”

Tears start rolling down Steve Carlsberg’s face from his bloodshot eyes. He wipes his nose on his sleeve, eyes manic. “Please, you have to help! Put out a message on the radio, or maybe Carlos can use his science - all these people have been going missing recently, and none of them have been coming back-”  

Steve Carlsberg stumbles slightly, and seems in danger of crumbling into a puddle of his own tears. Cecil steadies him with a hand on his shoulder, and he starts to pull him inside, only to have Steve start sobbing loudly into his shoulder, repeating, “Nobody’s been coming back-”

“She’s coming back, Steve,” Cecil says firmly, looking at Carlos over Steve’s heaving shoulders. “She’s coming back.” 

Steve looks up at Cecil’s face through his hysterics, and his expression is so candidly hopeful that it hurts for Carlos to look at.


	8. Chapter 8

The sun which rises the next morning is ferocious. The concrete shivers, baking; every surface pulses with heat, and the air feels soupy with it. Down town, a stray dog lopes through the empty shopping street, forked tongue lolling out as it tests the air. Outside of town, a peach falls off one of the trees in John Peters’ orchard, and sizzles loudly when it lands in a patch of sunshine. A low, pained chorus of groaning accompanied by the pungent smell of rotting flesh is heard drifting out from the abandoned mine shaft. 

Standing in the yard of Josie’s house early in the morning, not having slept a wink, Cecil stares out at the desert and watches the shifting horizon swimming with heat-warped lines. His tunic is sticking to his back, and he can taste sand in his mouth. His tattoos are undulating languidly over his forearms and hands, and he wiggles his fingers absently, feeling them respond to the movement playfully. Behind him, Damson is watering the huge old oak tree with a hosepipe, drenching the thick, wizened roots which protrude from the parched earth. 

“Come stand in the shade, Cecil. You’re going to catch fire,” Damson calls, although the angel is still wearing its customary knitted jumper, dungarees and heavy working boots. Cecil throws another look at the horizon, but consents to backing into the cooler shade. 

“Aren’t you hot too?” He asks. That jumper really does look quite thick. Damson’s black, deer-like nose quivers with amusement. 

“Nah, this heat doesn’t mean much to me. I’ve seen days hot enough to melt the lizards that sit still for too long.” 

“Well, the day’s only just beginning,” Cecil mutters, watching a pair of lime-green geckoes scuttling between the plumtrees trees a short distance away.

“That’s true,” Damson murmurs, and Cecil turns to see the angel looking at him with a fond, and very sad expression. “And I think it’s going to be a long one.”

“They’ve taken my niece, Damson,” Cecil swallows, feeling a gut-spasm of horror at the words. “We have to get her back. Carlos had to go to Heaven to sort a few things out, but as soon as he gets back, we’re going. It’s _Janice._ I don’t have a choice.” 

“I know you don’t,” Damson says placatingly, “Kin is the most important thing you’ve got, in the end.” 

“Or the most important thing you haven’t got,” Cecil murmurs. 

Damson looks at him with a fond, sad smile. The angel turns off the hosepipe, and runs a many-fingered, tapered hand up the trunk of the huge old oak tree, tracing the carved glyphs with a slightly maudlin expression. The carvings run over every inch of the tree’s trunk, from the roots and into the canopy way up above their heads. Not far away, sitting in the shade by the side of the house, is a small group of other angels, doing a very bad job of untangling a box of christmas lights for Josie, but a very good job of ignoring Cecil and Damson completely.

“Hey, can I ask you a question?” Cecil says, suddenly, watching the other angels trying to work out where one set of lights ends and where the next begins. Damson nods, looking at Cecil curiously. 

“I don’t want this to sound rude but, I was kinda wondering...you said that it’s not in an angel’s nature to have a body, but if you’re trapped in these forms, why don’t you just...” he gestures vaguely, trying to find the words. 

“Destroy the body?” Damson supplies, and Cecil nods awkwardly. 

“It doesn’t work like that. I wish it did, but it doesn’t,” Damson shrugs. “My being is bound to this form like colour to paint. If I threw myself off a mountain or tied myself to a big rock and jumped in a lake, it’d still be so. The body can die, but the spirit would still be sitting inside it, no matter how broken up it was. Some folks tried, of course. It was a while back now, but someone built a big bonfire where the car lot is now, and burned their body away. Guess they’d convinced themselves it would work, and we thought it had too, for a little while, until we heard the whisperings. Turns out, their consciousness was still attached to the ashes, trapped in an even worse place than we are. We kept the ashes. Not that it helped much.” 

Cecil remembers the screaming bloodstone urn in the hallway of Josie’s house, and he shudders. 

“I should go check on Carlos,” Damson says, breaking the momentary silence. “He’s probably done with whatever he was up to in Heaven.” 

Cecil nods in agreement, and watches as the angel presses its palms together and vanishes, leaving Cecil standing alone at the base of the enormous old tree. He looks out past the plum trees at the desert again, watching a dust-devil skitter across the horizon, and he wonders, not for the first time since Steve Carlsberg came bursting into his apartment the night before, if he’s going to live to see the end of this day, but more importantly, if _Carlos_ is going to. His heart palpitates when he thinks about the fact that Carlos is going to be in danger (or, more danger than usual) because of him, but then he thinks about Janice, alone in the desert, green lights reflected in her eyes, being drawn towards something none of them understand, and he loses his train of thought. 

He notices that the other angels have stopped trying to untangle the christmas lights, and are watching him with stony expressions. One of them, a black and yellow striped jumper hanging loosely off its broad shoulders, stands up slowly. The angel’s wings are a stormy purplish-grey like a wood pigeon’s, shot through with streaks of navy blue, and its dark antlers branch many times. Its incandescent sundisk is nearly blinding in the bright morning light, and its mercurial eyes bore into Cecil’s like lighthouse beams. 

He feels a discomforting fizzing sensation in the pit of his stomach, and then a wave of nausea rushes through him, and a distant, resonant drumming sound starts up inside his head. The other angels are looking at him too now, and the sudden feeling of being completely and utterly alone shoots through Cecil and lodges in his heart like an icicle.

He didn’t even realise that he had been floating several feet off the ground until he feels something closing around his wrist, and looks down to see that Damson has reappeared, and the angel’s innumerable, diaphanous fingers are the only thing stopping him from floating into the canopy of the old oak tree and beyond. Damson says something in a language which Cecil’s brain can’t parse, and so he just hears a deafening silence, before the other angel’s gaze finally breaks, the drumming sound stops, and Damson is pulling him back down. The floor sends an electric shock through his body which expels all the air from his lungs. 

“Sorry about that,” Damson says, letting go of Cecil’s wrist gently. “They don’t think I should have told you the story.”

“Which one?” Cecil tries to say, but all that he produces is a faint rattle, trying to draw air and failing. He feels the heatless palm of Damson’s hand pressing, feather-light, between his shoulder blades, and air suddenly fills his lungs. The air is cold, and fresh, and ever so slightly salty, and for a moment, a memory Cecil doesn’t ever remember being his present fills his mind, of a campfire on a dark beach, jade coloured flames, the susurrus of waves against pebbles. Then something untwists inside of him, and he takes a deep, shuddering breath of arid desert air. 

“Are you okay?” Damson asks, looking concerned. Cecil nods, coughing into his hand as sand-dust tickles his throat.

“I’m good, I’m good,” he wheezes, wiping his watering eyes. “No biggie. I _am_ on their turf.” 

“No biggie,” Damson repeats, sounding unconvinced. The angel gently presses the back of its hand against Cecil’s throat, and immediately, his coughing stops. The skin tingles. 

“Thanks. Hey, where’s Carlos?” he asks, voice growing stronger. Damson gestures towards the house, and Cecil turns to see Carlos standing on the doorstep of the house, talking to Josie. He can’t hear what it is they’re saying, but Josie has her hands on her hips, and Carlos looks admonished. He nods several times, rubbing the back of his head, and then, to Cecil’s surprise, he stoops down to hug Josie. Josie says something else, waving her hands, and then goes back inside the house, leaving the door open. Carlos starts walking over to them, slowing slightly to peer curiously at the trailer in the distance, which is fuzzy in the heat. 

“Hey,” he says once he’s in earshot, “All sorted. I just had to finalise some results, but it’s all done now. Are you alright?” 

Cecil nods, rubbing his throat discreetly. Carlos frowns slightly, a crease appearing between his thick eyebrows. 

“Hey, what’s wrong? You look kind of shaky.” 

“He had a bit of a run-in with the others,” Damson says, glancing at the huddle of angels by the house, who have now gone back to detangling the christmas lights. “He says it’s no biggie.” 

“It _is_ no biggie,” Cecil insists. Carlos narrows his eyes, unconvinced, and scans Cecil for blood, or maybe antler-shaped puncture wounds, but seems placated when he doesn’t see anything. “Okay. Are you ready?” 

Cecil nods, and wiggles his fingers again. The undulating tattoos on his arms and hands react immediately, rushing into his tunic, reappearing on his neck and then flowing across his face. Cecil’s face covered in moving shadows and at least ten extra eyes is a surreal sight for Carlos. He watches as the phosphenes of Cecil’s retinas vanish to a sliver, swallowed up by pupils with bright green lines reflected in them. 

“Let’s go,” Cecil says, taking Carlos’ hand and guiding them towards the desert, following the line which connects to his own feet. They pass underneath the plum trees, and enter the burning hell of the open desert. 

“Wait!”

They turn in unison to see Damson loping towards them, sundisk radiant. The angel crouches down and makes a sweeping movement with its knuckles in the sand, leaving a crescent with many furrows at their feet. A moment later, tiny, dark circles appear in the sand around them, and then bright drops of water start rising out of the sand, slowly at first, but then faster and faster, and more and more, a thunderstorm in reverse. Carlos feels the savage heat abating suddenly, and looks upwards to see a small, grey raincloud has appeared a few feet above their heads, shielding them from the worst of the sun. 

“It’s not much, but it’s all I can do,” Damson says, just as Mercy’s head pokes out of her customary pocket. 

“Thanks, Damson,” Carlos says. They both feel the angel’s anxious eyes on them for a long time after the plum trees and the canopy of the looming old tree vanish from sight. 

*** 

They walk. The horizon shimmers with unimaginable heat as the sun climbs higher and higher into the sky. They pass by the whispering forest, dense foliage and tall ferns hiding its interior from view; it compliments Cecil’s glasses, and says that Carlos has a ‘really good vibe about him’. They pass by large rocks and towering cactuses which don’t have shadows. A few times they find personal items half buried in the sand, things people have dropped as they walked this same journey; a biography of Helen Hunt, badly bloodstained; a curdled half-drunk blueberry smoothie; a pair of pince-nez which Cecil recognises as being Earl Harlan’s reading glasses. More than once, they spot figures in the distance, walking in the same direction as they are. They don’t stop. 

They have to cross over Route 800 at one point, a snaking, blacktopped incongruity in the wildness. The road is completely deserted, and they walk straight  across it, but the air is full of the sounds of heavy traffic; Carlos hears voices, an old man complaining about the heat, someone swearing quietly as their engine stalls. Once they’re across it, Cecil notices a person standing a little ways along the road with their thumb stuck out. They wave at him, and he waves back. Carlos turns see who he’s waving to, but his eyes go wide with mortal horror, and he grabs Cecil’s wrist and _runs_ like Cecil has never seen him run before.

“It was just a hitch-hiker,” Cecil demurs, once they’re far away from the road, still catching his breath. The green lines around them have grown more numerous now, and something tells him they aren’t far away from where they all converge, but the heat makes it hard to tell if the looming shapes on the horizon are illusions, or something else. 

“Not a hitch-hiker,” Carlos gasps, still shaken. “That was a _demon,_ ” and he does something he hasn’t done since he was very little; he crosses himself. 

“A- _ha_!” Cecil crows, pointing, “You _are_ superstitious, I _knew_ it!” 

“That was involuntary. It was - I -” Carlos falters under Cecil’s triumphant grin, and mutters, “Shut up,” before walking off swiftly completely the wrong way.

“So,” Cecil says coyly, having steered them back in the right direction, “You believe in demons, but not in angels?” 

And Carlos doesn’t have an answer to that. Not that long ago, he would have said that he believes only what he sees, but that rule ran screaming for the hills the day he moved to Night Vale. 

A little while later, when the heat starts becoming unbearable, the little cloud above their heads rumbles quietly and then starts raining onto them. The water is blissfully cool, so the two of them stand underneath it for a while, mouthes open, letting the rainwater soak them through. They start walking again when the rain abates as the little cloud vanishes. Their clothes steam visibly. Carlos is halfway through explaining to Cecil that no, evaporation is _not_ ‘dark and arcane shaman-sorcery’, when Cecil’s hand grabs his arm in warning.

“We’re close,” Cecil murmurs, squinting at something hazy which just emerged out of the heat-warped confusion of the horizon. They continue walking, but silently now, until the haze becomes more solid, and the soft sand under their feet peters out into hard, red-brown sandstone. Things which had looked like buildings in the distance turn into looming, sandstone towers. The two of them walk in between the eery pillars for what feels like an eternity, careful not to lose sight of each other. The green line they’ve been following zig-zags between the pillars, taking them this way and that. 

“Are you sure this is right?” Carlos whispers, his voice bouncing strangely off the towers which surround them on all sides, a stony forest. Cecil nods, tattoos still swirling across his face. 

“Definitely. I think we just need to-” 

The sound of small stones falling stops them both in their tracks. They listen intently and then, distinctly, the sound of footsteps, somewhere close by. They see a slice of movement through the pillars, a person walking in the same direction as them. 

“Come on,” Carlos whispers, moving to guide them away, but Cecil won’t budge. He’s staring intently at the gaps in between the pillars. He starts walking over, ignoring Carlos’ hand tugging on his sleeve. Carlos catches a glimpse of tangled black hair, and then they round a corner, and nearly collide with the person, who, of course, doesn’t seem to notice them at all.

“Oh, no,” Carlos mutters. 

Hitomi’s checked pyjamas are hopelessly bedraggled, her usually sleek hair full of twigs and sand. Several long, barbed cactus spikes stick out of her face and neck. Her feet are bare, and raw, and she leaves smudges of blood on the sandstone with every determined step she takes, following the shivering green beam of light at her feet. She moves much faster than poor Megan Wallaby.

“Hitomi!” Cecil says, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her bony frame. “Not you too,  Tomi, you’re stronger than they are! You have to fight it-” 

“Cecil, she can’t hear you-”

“I know that!” Cecil snaps, fury and grief mingled in his expression. Carlos puts a hand over Cecil’s, gently, and prises his fingers away from Hitomi’s shoulders. Cecil gives him a defeated look, and drops his hands. Immediately, Hitomi starts walking again, bumping into Cecil and then weaving in and out of the pillars and disappearing.

“We should follow her,” Cecil says, and Carlos nods. It doesn’t take them long to find her again; the trail of bloody footprints leads them straight to her. In Cecil’s vision, their three green lines - his and Hitomi’s bright like laser beams, Carlos’ weak and flickery - gradually merge into one strong beam of light. Cecil is so focussed on it he doesn’t notice the approaching precipice, when it appears; Carlos pulls him back at the last second, and they find themselves standing on the lip of a shallow, sun-blasted valley.

“ _Mierda_ ,” Carlos breathes, taking in the sight. 

The gorge at their feet is alive with people, and ringing with the deafening squall of heavy machinery. People, hundreds of people, are swarming around a truly enormous industrial-yellow drill which is throwing billowing clouds of thick, orange dust into the air. In Cecil’s vision, the gorge is a blaze of green light, hundreds upon hundreds of wriggling green lines attached to each individual person. He feels his tattoos slithering away from his face, back down to his arms and his torso, and the green lights vanish all at once, leaving behind an ocean of people, all of them carrying large steel buckets. With every second of drilling, copious amounts of rubble are spewed out of the side of the drill, and the people closest to it run forwards, scoop up a bucketful, and scuttle away to deposit their loads on the other side of the gorge, and then join the heaving crowd again. They watch as Hitomi, unhesitating, starts climbing her way down into the gorge, finding footholds in the rock as if she had made this journey a thousand times. 

They can’t even see the faces of the people from this distance, but the letters printed in black on the side of the hulking yellow drill are clear as daylight, each letter taller than Cecil and Carlos put together. 

“Strexcorp,” Cecil reads out loud. 

“Did somebody call?” a musical, see-sawing voice says from right behind them, and all the tiny hairs on the back of Cecil’s neck rise. Both of them spin on their heels, and find two people standing directly behind them, flanked by four, silently towering hooded figures. The man and the woman are wearing matching, immaculately starched suits and broad grins which seem wider than their actual faces. There is decidedly too much blood to be considered normal on their clothes, and their eyes are bottomless pits. 

Literally. 

“Welcome to Hidden Gorge!” they trill in unison. 

“You are under arrest for trespassing on private property!” the man says.

“In accordance with section B4 point QQQ-Sigma of the Strexcorp Workers’ Charter!” the woman adds cheerfully.

“You will now be restrained and transferred to company custody until further notice. Thank you for your co-operation!” The man says, with a giggle.  

The hooded figures glide towards them with their eery grace, and Carlos wonders _how_ he didn’t work out sooner that they were angelic; just before a damp cloth is pressed over his nose and mouth, and he sees burning constellations when he breathes in, he feels his feet lifting off the floor ever so slightly. 


	9. Chapter 9

Cecil wakes up to a very dim, flickering light and the sound of dripping water. It takes his eyes a long time to adjust to the blackness. When they do, he finds himself slumped in the corner of a stuffy, low-ceilinged cell with rough, sandstone walls, a tin jug full of slightly cloudy water, and a broken florescent light bolted to the back wall. Through the bars, he can see a narrow and very dark tunnel, with just the suggestion of other cells facing his own. He groans under the weight of the headache throbbing in the lizard core of his brain. His mouth tastes like petrol.

“Cecil?” a familiar voice whispers hoarsely.

“Carlos? That you?”

“Yeah, it’s me, I’m in the cell next to you.”

Cecil tries to lever himself up off the floor but fails spectacularly, vision swimming nauseatingly. He crawls on his belly towards the cell bars, and tries to see round the corner, but only ends up nearly getting his head stuck between the bars.

“I already tried, it’s no good. But I managed to fix the light in my cell, I had to turn it off quickly when the hooded figures came round again a while ago, but - hang on, give me a minute-”

Cecil hears the sound of Carlos getting to his feet, some scratching and clicking, and then a semicircle of white light suddenly appears on the corridor floor, to his right. In the middle of it, through the stripes of the cell’s bars, Carlos’ shadow waves its hand, a negative space in the pool of light. How such a simple gesture has the ability to take Cecil’s breath away isn’t something he quite understands.

“How are you doing?” Carlos asks, quietly. His voice sounds smaller in the cramped space.

“Fine,” Cecil says after a moment. “Well, my head hurts, but I’m fine. What about you?”

“Same here. I’m pretty sure it’s just the after-effect of whatever sedative chemical they used on us.”

“How long have you been awake?”

“I’m not sure. A little while. When I woke up, there were two hooded figures standing outside the cell just staring at me. Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s what woke me up in the first place.”

Cecil drops his head, letting himself lie prostrate on the sandy floor.

“I can’t believe I thought this would work,” he says into the floor. “Now they’re going to kill us both, or worse, and it’s all my fault. We should have just stayed at home.”

“Hey now,” Carlos’ voice says, “It’s not like you dragged me out here against my will, I wanted to go just as much as you did. Besides, you should give yourself more credit.”

There’s a touch of humour in Carlos’ voice which Cecil can’t find any reason for.

“More credit for what, winning the award for most number of loved ones failed in one day?”

“You didn’t fail anyone, uncle Cecil,” another voice whispers eagerly, and Cecil scrambles up off the floor so fast that he overbalances, smacking his forehead on the bars with a resounding clang. A familiar giggle drifts out from the darkness outside his cell.

“Janice? Janice, is that you? Where are you?”

“Now push the connector between the central two tabs again, just like you did before,” Carlos’s voice says, his shadow gesturing demonstratively. Cecil’s eyes are drawn to movement in one of the dark cells a little way up the row the other side of the narrow corridor, and then the cell illuminates abruptly, revealing Cecil’s niece Janice, looking windswept and a lot older than her eleven years, but decidedly not dead. Cecil hangs his head with relief, hands gripping the bars tight.

“I helped her fix the light in her cell,” Carlos says. “Not that she needed much helping. She thinks like a scientist,” he adds, and Cecil can hear the approving smile through his words.

“Uncle Cecil, are you okay?” Janice asks, sounding concerned. “Why are you looking at the floor?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m just - God, I’m so relieved to see you. I was so scared - but you’re okay, are you okay? You’re not hurt?”

“No, I’m not hurt.”

“What happened to you, Jan? Why are you in here?”

Janice points upwards, and Cecil’s eyes follow her finger to the words printed above the cell, which he can read now. DEFECTIVE UNITS. Anger starts boiling in Cecil’s stomach, and it must show on his face.

“It’s okay,” Janice says placatingly, “If they hadn’t put me in here then I’d still be out there with the others, with the drill. I should probably say thank you to them. They let me keep my chair and everything.”

She laughs ruefully, but then she starts pulling on one of her hair bunches, the way she has done her entire life when she’s been worried or upset about something.

“Are they mad at me?” she asks in a small voice.

“Are who mad at you?”

“Mom and Steve. I didn’t mean to leave, I swear! I don’t know what happened, I can’t remember, I was at home, in my room, and then there was this light, this shimmering green light inside my head-”

“Janice, of course they’re not mad at you! They know it’s not your fault. Steve-” Carlos hears Cecil make a gagging noise which sounds like the choking back of bile, “Steve came and told us you were missing. He was worried half dead about you. I actually let him nap on my couch, that’s how bad it was.”

“He put newspaper down on the couch first, of course,” Carlos adds, and Janice giggles, wiping her eyes surreptitiously.

“Wait, I don’t understand,” Cecil says, frowning, “Why isn’t the mind control working on you anymore?”

“Mind control?” She repeats, sounding confused.

“The hooded figures are using the Sheriff’s mind control network to draw people out here and force them to work,” Carlos explains. Janice’s eyes widen.

“Is that what the green lights were?”

Carlos nods, and she runs a hand across her face, a look of concentration on her face.

“I - I’m not sure. I remember being by the drill, and trying, really trying, to help take away the rubble, but I couldn’t keep up. It’s kind of fuzzy. But I remember the green light disappearing, and being really confused, and then someone telling me that I had to go with them because I was an inefficient worker.”

“They must disconnect the people can’t work from the mind control network,” Carlos says, thoughtfully. “I wonder why.”

“Because we’d contaminate the other drones if they didn’t,” a disembodied voice grumbles, “Strexcorp thinks not being able to do the work is contagious.”

“Who said that?” Cecil asks, craning his neck to try and see into one of the hidden corners of the defective units cell.

“Janice, lift me up, would you?” the mystery voice says, and Janice retreats into one of Cecil’s blind spots, before returning with something held in her hand.

“Sarah Sultan?” Cecil says in surprise, staring through the bars at the smooth, fist-sized rock in Janice’s hand. “What are you doing here?”

“When was the last time you met a river rock who could hold a bucket, Palmer?” Sarah says dryly, and Cecil nods, conceding to her point.

“Well, I’m sure you’re safer in here than you are out there anyway. Hey, is there anyone else in there?”

“There was a guy with a suitcase when I got here,” Janice says thoughtfully, “But they came and took him away. Wait, was it a suitcase? Actually, I think it might have been a briefcase.”

“Who are you talking about? I don’t remember any man with a briefcase,” Sarah says, and Janice looks confused for a moment, before waving her hand dismissively.

“Never mind. And there’s him, too,” Janice adds, pointing at a large, dark mound in the corner of the cell which Cecil hadn’t noticed up until now.

“That’s a person?” Carlos asks, sounding curious. “I thought it was a pile of trash or something.”

“We don’t know who he is, but he doesn’t do much anyway, just sits there mumbling to himself sometimes,” Janice says, wrinkling her nose up. “But he stinks really bad.”

The shape in the corner shifts slightly, and makes a thick, horrible gargling sound, as if choking on molasses. A hand appears, limp, grey-green, and huge. Cecil notices Carlos’ shadow going very still, and knows that Carlos is feeling the same ominous sense of recognition as he is. Their suspicions are confirmed when the remains of a face appear, like a full moon from behind a cloud, from underneath a pile of filth-stained leather.

“Sebastian,” Cecil murmurs, staring at the rotting mess which only vaguely resembles the face of the late Sheriff Anders.

“It’s not really him,” Carlos reminds him quietly, “It’s just a puppet.”

“But it looks like him,” Cecil says, sadly, just as a many-legged grub crawls out of the puppet’s mouth and makes its way across one drooping cheek. The puppet garbles something incomprehensible, one eye boring into Cecil’s, the other rolling manically in its socket. It gulps visibly, and tries again, still staring at Cecil with an expression which he thinks looks imploring.

“What are you trying to say?” He whispers, and the puppet lets out a tortured sounding gurgle. A moment later, part of its tongue slips out of its bloated lips and lands on the floor with a squelch.

“Leave it, Cecil, they wouldn’t have left it there if it could help us.”

Cecil’s response is cut off by a resonant, metallic clanking sound from down the corridor. Simultaneously, Janice and Carlos’ shadow scramble backwards into their cells, and a few seconds later, both of their lights go out, plunging them all into relative blackness. Cecil backs away from his cell bars slightly, listening to the echoing sound of footsteps coming their way with shallow breaths. A person comes into view, appalling face thrown into relief by the flickering torchlight. His clothes are soaked in gore, his teeth tinged red. He pauses, facing Cecil and Carlos’ cells, smiling broadly. A single hooded figure looms behind him, towering and imposing.

“Hello, Carlos and Cecil,” he says, voice lilting and melodic. “We apologise for the wait. Your arrival here in Hidden Gorge was somewhat a surprise for us,” he adds, admonishingly.

“Us?” Carlos asks, hands wrapped around his cell bars. The gaping maws of the man’s eyes turn towards him, and Carlos can physically feel his gaze roaming over his face.

“Yes, us,” he purrs. “I’m Kevin, and I represent Strexcorp, where all your matter matters!” Kevin claps his hands together and sighs contentedly.

“So that’s your drill outside?” Carlos asks, and Kevin nods keenly.

“Yes, wonderful, isn’t it?”

“Maybe not the word I would have used,” mutters Cecil, and Kevin finally drags his stare away from Carlos and onto Cecil.

“And what word would you have used, Cecil?” He asks, brightly. The words printed on the cells opposite, DEFECTIVE UNITS, float above Kevin’s head like a thought bubble.

“Oh, I don’t know, _evil_ , maybe?” Cecil spits back, recklessly, but Kevin’s smile only broadens.

“What a colourful vocabulary you have, Cecil! I really admire that in a person. But I don’t think you’d be using such strong words if you actually knew what Strexcorp’s objectives with this project really were.” Kevin pauses, and his voice darkens in a way which makes a cold sweat break out on Cecil’s forehead. “You shouldn’t talk about things you’re not fully cognisant of.”

A laden silence sits between them for a moment, and then Kevin giggles again. “See, I have a good vocabulary too!”

He looks between them both for a moment, and then his expression grows thoughtful.

“My dear colleague Lauren and I had a little disagreement over just what to do with you. She though we should put you through the corporation’s matter recyclers, or maybe just leave you somewhere in the middle of the desert and let the dune-wasps take care of you. But,” he says, raising a finger as if making an important point, “I disagreed. I believe that killing anybody who didn’t really, really need it would be contradicting the spirit of Strexcorp’s company ethos, and to kill two highly experienced individuals with skill sets as useful as science and community radio presenting-”

Kevin shakes his head sadly, pursing his lips. “Well, I think it would be a waste. And I don’t like waste. Besides, I think that two people as clever as you are capable of understanding our goals with Project Slumbering Enigma.”

“That’s a terrible name for a project,” Sarah Sultan’s voice mutters from the row opposite. Kevin ignores her completely.

“Our objectives here are very, very simple,” he starts, speaking slowly and clearly. His speech sounds pre-prepared; Carlos almost expects a powerpoint presentation to appear on the wall.

“There’s just something about this desert basin which is special. People are drawn to it, like insects to a light bulb. That was my experience, at least! And to us at Strexcorp, soul magnetism sounds like a potentially very, very useful productivity-enhancer. So, a while back now, we started doing a little research here and there, and it sure took a while, but the diligent Strexcorp scientists finally managed to deduce the location of that something which brings people here. They narrowed it down to right here in Hidden Gorge! And they named it the Slumbering Enigma in their final report, right before they were recycled after having fulfilled their purposes. Our research into the area also bought us into contact with some of the locals,” Kevin says, gesturing to the hooded figure, which shifts on its feet slightly.

“And they’ve been just so helpful! They agreed to find a way to secure cost-effective, locally sourced labour, and they even managed to liaison closely with the town authorities to make our project a genuinely grassroots enterprise, investing in the area’s natural assets by actively involving the entire local community.”

“Yeah, by enslaving them all,” Cecil says, and it occours to Carlos, who had been wondering what the hooded figures were getting in return for their help, that seeing every person in Night Vale enslaved was probably enough for them. Kevin ploughs on as if Cecil hadn’t said anything at all.

“Once we’ve excavated the Slumbering Enigma, we’d like to relocate it to one of our laboratories for further research, and that’s where I think your skill set could be really valuable, Carlos ” Kevin says, reaching his hands out towards Carlos. “I mean, isn’t that what you came to Night Vale for in the first place? What was it you said, that it was a _scientifically fascinating community?_ Wouldn’t you love to know what it is that makes this place so special?”

Carlos doesn’t reply, and in lieu of his response, Kevin turns to Cecil instead.

“And you, Cecil! We’ve heard so much about the rapport you have with the locals. Being able to build effective, long-lasting understandings with communities is a skill which Strexcorp could really use, so we’d love it if you joined our team as our Community Outreach Director! We make contact with a lot of small communities all over the country, but they don’t always respond positively, so having someone with your people skills on board would be truly... _invaluable_.”

Kevin eyes the tattoos on Cecil’s arms and neck with a calculating and slightly hungry expression, and Cecil feels them retreating into his clothing in fear.

“So, what do you say, hm?” Kevin says, arms held out towards them. “Will you join us? Not only will you get significant employee perks, including a pension and healthcare _to die for_ , but you’ll also get to work for one of the fastest growing corporations in the world, now wouldn’t that be exciting?”

He looks between Cecil and Carlos’ unresponsive faces for a few moments, and his arms drop back to his sides. He glances over his shoulder at the hooded figure, and shrugs ruefully.

“Well, I can’t say I’m not disappointed,” he sighs, smile fading. “What a shame. I guess Lauren was right. We really will have to just kill you both. But I think I’ll go for a slightly more...personal approach than Lauren had planned. My office needs redecorating.”

He leans backwards on his heels, and murmurs to the hooded figure, “Fetch that one for me, would you?”

The black tunnels of his eye sockets don’t leave Carlos’ face for one moment. The hooded figure nods, and breezes forwards, unlocking the cell door deftly. It has to duck its head to get inside the cell, which it’s forced to do because Carlos has backed up against the far wall like a cornered animal.

“You don’t need to do this,” he says to the hooded figure as it advances on him, a hand with innumerable, translucent fingers moving to take hold of him by the throat. “We can help you! Listen, one of your people told us about what happened to you, how the human settlers tricked you and that you’re trapped now, but how is helping Strexcorp going to solve anything?”

The hooded figure pauses, and he can feel its eyes on him.

“Getting revenge on the humans might feel good but it won’t solve your problem, it’ll just make more problems,” Carlos says earnestly. “What happens to you once Strexcorp have gone and the town is empty? What will do you? If you help us get out of here, then I swear, I won’t rest until you’re free again.”

“Don’t listen to him, Erika,” Kevin shrills, but the hooded figure doesn’t seem to pay him any attention.

“What do you swear on?” The hooded figure says, in a low and incongruously gentle voice which echoes slightly, just like Damson’s. Carlos hesitates, unsure of how to answer for a moment.

“My life,” he offers, finally. The hooded figure seems to exhale. It shakes its head.

“Not enough.”

The less-than-angel seizes Carlos by the throat, and hauls him bodily from the cell, feet dragging on the sandstone floor. Through the suddenly very loud sound of his pulse in his ears, Carlos hears Janice and Sarah and Cecil shouting frightened things. He catches a glimpse of Cecil’s panicked face, and the hooded figure mutters in his ear,

“You should have said you swore on _his_ life. I might have believed you then.”

Just as his vision starts getting fuzzy around the edges, and his lungs are sparking, he catches a burst of movement out of the corner of his eye. He hears an appalling sound which he guesses is Kevin shrieking in fear when he sees a bloodstained figure sprinting out of the door. The vice around his throat loosens so suddenly that he doesn’t have time to rebalance himself, and he crashes to the floor, only to be hauled up again a second later. The angel Damson’s serene face comes into view through a thick haze.

“Damson? How did you-”

“You didn’t really think I’d just let you two trouble-magnets wander off into the desert and not keep an eye on you?” The angel says with a tight smile. A few feet away from them, the hooded figure lies sprawled on the floor, clutching its stomach but clearly recovering.

“We have to go, right now,” Damson says hurriedly.

“Take Cecil first,” Carlos says immediately, stepping away from the angel.

“I won’t leave without Janice,” Cecil says hotly, still stuck inside his cell.

“I’ll be fine, uncle Cecil, get out of here while you still can! You and Carlos are the only people who can stop this now,” Janice urges, but Cecil is already shaking his head vehemently, repeating that he won’t leave without her. Damson looks between them, frowning slightly.

“Take Janice first,” Carlos amends, “Then take Cecil.”

The angel nods, and stoops down to grab the ring of keys from the hooded figure, which lets out a pained groan.

“Good to finally meet you, Janice, sorry it couldn’t be under better circumstances,” the angel says, unlocking the door and hurrying over to Janice. “Hold your palms out.”

The angel touches its hands to an intrigued-looking Lauren’s upturned palms, and the two of them, along with Sarah Sultan, vanish in the blink of an eye. The hooded figure makes an attempt to get up, but crumples back down with a low grunt. Its hood has fallen back slightly, and Cecil catches a glimpse of an unmistakable deer-like nose, and sallow but immaculate porcelain skin. Carlos steps around it, trying to get to Cecil’s cell, but he feels something on his ankle, and looks down to see the puppet of Sheriff Anders has wrapped its hand around it, and is staring intently at him with watery eyes.

“The trees,” it wheezes, lucidly enough to make Carlos think that maybe, there’s still something left the real Sebastian Anders, Sheriff of Night Vale, inside that rotting facade of humanity. “They came from the trees.”

The desperate expression on its face is begging Carlos for something, he’s not sure what, so he just nods to show he understands. The puppet releases his ankle, face slackening horribly, and then the air between Carlos and Cecil’s cell starts warping alarmingly. Damson reappears there, now without Janice and Sarah.

“Where did you take Janice? Is she okay?”

“I took her to her mother’s house. Stand back.”

The angel moves to unlock Cecil’s cell, glancing anxiously at the hooded figure, but Cecil grabs the angel by the wrist.

“Damson, please,” Cecil says imploringly, looking hard at the angel’s silvery eyes, “There’s not long, Kevin will be back with others any second now. Please.”

Damson stares at him, and Cecil swallows hard, searching the angel’s face for a sign of agreement.

“What we said, earlier, about kin being the most important thing you haven’t got, in the end,” he hurries out, but then stops, unsure how to finish his sentence, so he just says, “Please,” again. Damson stares at him for another few moments, and then nods. The angel turns back towards Carlos, who starts backing away, draws his hands behind his back, says, “Don’t you dare-”

But it’s already too late. Damson takes him by the scruff of the neck, drags his hands out from behind his back, and then the air is boiling, Cecil’s face elongates and disappears, and they rematerialise in the evening chill within the circle of plum trees around Josie’s house.

“Go back for him!” Carlos says, pulling away from Damson instantly. “Go back for him right now-”

“Calm down, Carlos, I’m going-”

“No, you’re not,” a low voice says, from the shade of the old oak tree behind Damson’s back. A large group of angels materialise from the shadows, expressions stony. Carlos just has time to register the pitchforks, the metal bars, the big double-barreled shotgun, when one of them, its yellow and black jumper wasp-like in the setting sun, swings a shovel at the back of Damson’s head. It connects with a deafening crack, and Damson screams, a piercing sound which shakes leaves off the plum trees. Shards of shattered sundisk rain down on Carlos’ head; they fall to the floor, and their golden glow starts fading like dying embers. The shining circle framing Damson’s head is only a half-circle now, the remaining side marred with cracks.

“You gone too far, half-one,” the angel with the shovel says loudly. Damson staggers slightly, but manages to stay upright. A thick, clear liquid is dribbling down the angel’s shoulders and back from a gaping wound where the shovel struck.

“Had to help,” Damson slurs. More other angels step forwards out of the shadows around the old oak tree and house, more of them than Carlos has ever seen in one place before.

“You ain’t got no business helping them!” the yellow and black angel shouts, and the surrounding angels make angry noises; feathers rustle, antlers clack against each other sharply.

“Had to help. The others are helping the newcomers dig up-” and Damson says something in a language which makes Carlos’ brain short circuit. The yellow and black angel spits on the floor, livid; its saliva burns a hole in the dirt.

“Good riddance to it,” The angel says, “I hope it burns up and dies when the sunlight hits it, and may this god forsaken desert fall empty forever!”

Four of the angels charge forwards and seize Damson by the wings and single antler, dragging the wounded angel towards the huge old oak tree. There’s something thin and pale swaying gently in front of the trunk, and Carlos’ gut flips in horror when he realises what it is. He sees the moment when Damson notices the noose too; the angel’s silvery eyes widen, and then its wings unfurl in a rush of white and brown feathers, flapping hard enough to raise a cloud of sand from the ground.

“Carlos, Run! Run!” Damson yells, through the chaos of wings and arms and antlers, but Carlos is rooted to the spot, as unable to move as the old oak tree. Damson breaks free from the hands of the other angels, and takes flight clumsily. The angel is swooping up and away from the tree when the thundering sound of a shotgun cuts through the air.

Everything goes very still; the angel Damson floats in the air, with a dazed, surprised expression, for a few, surreal moments. There is a gaping hole half a foot wide in the angel’s midriff, which Carlos can see straight through. Clear, angelic blood starts darkening Damson’s clothes, and the strange moment of silent, floating peace snaps shut like a guillotine falling. Damson crashes back to the ground with a jarring thud, not far from Carlos. Carlos blinks once, shock numbing his extremities, and then his paralysis is gone. He runs, trips once and goes sprawling, crawls on his hands and knees over to the fallen angel. Bile rises in his throat at the sight of the enormous cavity in Damson’s belly.

“What do I do?” He says, panicking, as the other angels advance on them. The angel is looking at him as if seeing him from across a great distance. “You’re an angel, you can’t die!”

Five, ten, fifteen pairs of hands, hundreds of long diaphanous fingers, land on Damson’s body - arms, legs, wings, someone reaches their arm into the hole in the angel’s belly - and lift. The angel’s head lolls on its broad, sagging shoulders. As the others start carrying Damson back towards the oak tree, its dimming, silver eyes meet with Carlos’, and the shadow of a familiar, serene smile passes over the angel’s face.

“No such thing as angels,” the angel Damson whispers, before vanishing from view. Carlos starts chasing after the group, knowing it’s hopeless but unable and unwilling to stop himself. An angel in an ugly argyle sweater, who had been lingering silently near the house, approaches him now. It grabs him by the collar of his labcoat and pulls him away, ignoring his distressed protest.

“You can’t help,” the angel mutters, its perfectly circular face porcelain-white.

“You can!” Carlos snaps, trying to shove the argyle angel away. “You coward!”

He hears the sound of the house door opening, quick, shuffling footsteps, and then Josie is standing next to him, peering up at him and the argyle angel with her hands on her hips. The argyle angel lets go of Carlos’ collar, but watches him out of the corner of its eye, as if waiting for him to bolt.

“What in god’s name is going on out here?” Josie demands. The argyle angel doesn’t reply, just turns with a forlorn expression to the scene at the foot of the old oak tree. Josie’s eyes widen into dinner plates, and then her expression turns grim.

“Carlos, get inside the house, right now. You too, Erika.”

“But-”

“I wasn’t asking,” she says, giving him a sharp look. Carlos grits his teeth, and closes his eyes against the tears burning behind his eyelids. Somewhere in the distance, a cockerel crows in anguish, and then goes quiet. He turns away from the group of angels gathered around the foot of the tree, but can still see in his mind the taut rope, swaying ever so slightly, as if in a gentle breeze.

Later that night, the canopy of the old oak tree is illuminated by so many fireflies that the phosphorescent, greenish glow is seen all the way on the other side of town.


	10. Chapter 10

 The next morning, Josie’s yard is purple. At some point in the night, At some point in the night, every single plum fell off all of the trees, and now the air is full of the sweet reek of fruit slowly rotting in the sunshine.

The argyle angel went and cut the body down at dawn, and had carried it to Heaven, where they had to lay it on the floor because none of the surfaces were long enough. Carlos sits on the floor, staring at the old patchwork blanket which Josie has laid over the body. That isn’t long enough either; Damson’s dusty brown working boots protrude from the bottom. Carlos hasn’t slept for more than an hour or two for the second night running. He runs a hand through his dirty hair, eyes stinging painfully. His fingers get snagged in the tangled locks, and he just leaves his hand there, elbow out at an awkward angle, trying to remember a time when he ever felt as desperate and as completely alone as now. 

He looks up at the sound of someone arriving in heaven. The argyle angel, who had been leaning over to press its palms against Josie’s, straightens up, and nods at Carlos in greeting. It’s holding Mercy the sloth awkwardly under one arm. Mercy lets out an annoyed sounding squeak, and is lowered gently onto the floor, where she starts crawling slowly towards where Carlos is sitting. Josie comes over to him, the gentle clinking of her many bracelets and necklaces following her. This morning, she seems to have thrown on an extra shawl or six, and her fingers are devoid of the usual jeweled silver rings. She presses a bowl of what looks like chicken soup into his hands - with actual chicken, not one of those weird monocular rodents which Cecil insists are ‘the best chicken on the market, I can make a mean fricassee with a couple of these, and you’ll barely get sick at all.’  Thinking about Cecil makes it feel like someone is reaching their arm down his throat and squeezing his heart, but he takes the soup, more out of politeness than any real hunger. 

“Thanks, Josie,” he says hoarsely, throat raw from the sleepless night. 

“Don’t mention it,” she replies, sitting down next to him. They sit in silence for a few minutes, as Carlos forces himself to eat. Josie stares at the patchwork quilt with a slightly lost expression. 

“Erika told me what happened,” she murmurs, hands in her lap. “How you two went out into the desert to find all those missing people, and Erika went after you. That was a mighty brave thing to do, with the others being - being how they are.” 

Carlos nods wordlessly, looking down into his bowl. He feels Josie’s hand on his shoulder, and looks down to see her looking at him with a sorrowful expression. 

“Oh, Carlos, I’m so sorry. About Cecil. Are - are you sure there ain’t no way you can go back?” 

He shakes his head, swallowing hard, and Josie drops her hand. 

“Cecil was the one guiding us last time. I wouldn’t even know where to start. I know we crossed over Route 800 at one point, but that’s not enough to go on. And they’d probably kill Erika too if Erika helped,” he says, glancing at the argyle angel, which crosses its arms and looks away. He knows it’s true, that the argyle angel couldn’t take him back to Hidden Gorge,even if it did want to help them, but it still hurts that it didn’t at least try. The angel seems to have helped him more out of loyalty to Damson than anything else. 

Meanwhile, Mercy has finally reached where Carlos and Josie are sitting. She approaches the body, blinking slowly as she snuffles around the edge of the patchwork blanket, where Carlos had tucked a cold, weightless hand underneath it. After a moment, she curls up, puts her head down on the lump in the blanket which is the crook of Damson’s elbow, and closes her eyes. 

“I should probably go and clean up all those goddamn plums,” Josie says, quietly. “I can’t believe they all came from the trees, this late in the season.” 

Something which has been nagging Carlos in the back of his head raises its head at Josie’s words. He suddenly remembers the puppet of Sheriff Anders, telling him something the night before. In the chaos, he had completely forgotten about it, but now, the puppet’s rotting, bug-infested face floats in vivid colour across his mind. 

“They came from the trees,” he mutters to himself, frowning. 

“What was that?” 

“Oh, nothing. Just something from yesterday.”

Josie shrugs, and then heaves herself up off the floor, grunting quietly as her back cracks. 

“Now listen here,” she says sternly, looking at Carlos over her bottle-end glasses, “You had something to eat, now you got to sleep.”

“I don’t know, Josie. I think I’m going to stay up here and run some tests. Maybe if I re-analyse some of my data about the energy lines in the desert basin area, I’ll be able to-”

“How much help you think you’re going to be to anyone when you ain’t had no sleep, hmm?” Josie says, looking down at him with one eyebrow raised, and for a moment, Carlos feels about six years old again.  

“You ain’t a machine, Carlos,” she says, more gently. “Even conquistadores need their beauty sleep.” 

Carlos feels like arguing, and she must see it on his face, because she shoots him the same ‘Don’t mess around, son’ look that his old PDH supervisor used to, and he gives up. He lets the argyle angel take him back down to Josie’s house, and she shows him to a room he hasn’t ever been in before, a bedroom with a window facing the yard. Apart from all of the fallen plums, it looks more or less like it does every day.  A few of the angels are standing around the vegetable patch with watering cans. Some of them are milling around picking up the plums which are still good, and putting them in baskets. The only evidence of what happened the night before are the handful of dead fireflies scattered around the trunk of the old oak tree. Carlos draws the ruby curtains, which fills the room with red light, and crawls underneath the covers, only pausing to take his shoes off. 

Even here, every space on the walls and the ceiling is covered with those oil paintings. Some of the people he recognises from around town; he sees Big Rico concentrating hard on a formless lump of clay on a potters wheel; the college student who works at the Arby’s, sitting in one of the pews of the sand-waste cathedral, bathed in the marbled light coming from the stained-glass window; Tamika Flynn, wiping a bloody meat cleaver against her shorts with one hand, perusing a copy of _Everything is Illuminated_ with the other. Most of the people, however, he doesn’t recognise at all, and there’s something discomforting about looking at paintings of strangers who don’t know they’re being observed. He rolls onto his side so that he doesn’t have to look at one in particular which he notices, tucked into a corner of the ceiling, of an old man with his eyes closed, listening to a wireless radio. 

He hadn’t expected himself to fall asleep, but somehow, he does. He knows he’s asleep, because he’s lost in the forest again, with patches of the livid purple sky peeping in through the canopy. He closes his eyes and drinks in the chill in the air, savouring it after the searing heat of the desert. There is a rustling behind him, and he swivels round, hoping against hope to see a familiar pair of chestnut antlers and soft, barnowl wings, but it’s only a squirrel. He watches it scuttle up the trunk of a tree and vanish. 

_“Carloooooos,”_ the lilting, ghostly voice calls, and he’s ready for it this time. He breaks into a sprint immediately, hell-bent on reaching the clearing this time, with its swirling blackness and rhythmic chanting. He leaps over the fallen tree trunk without a thought, is too fast for the deer drinking at the stream to even have time to be alarmed and run away, sends tree frogs flying, webbed feet splayed, as he pushes low-hanging branches out of his way. His feet pound the mossy forest floor, and he sees the clearing start to appear, the voice is still calling his name, louder and louder, and he’s close enough to see the swirling blackness again, to hear the chanting-

Carlos runs chest-first into someone, and goes sprawling. When he picks himself up off the floor, chest heaving, he finds that the clearing has vanished, and the voice has fallen silent. He lets out a yell of frustration, and kicks at a log. It shatters into a hundred, rotten pieces, and a multitude of woodlice and grubs wriggle in the splinters. 

“Hello? Who’s there?” 

Carlos spins on his heel, and realises that it must have been a person who he crashed into, because there’s a very short, very alarmed looking woman standing close by, brandishing a large stick like a weapon. He’s never seen another person in the forest before. It’s disorientating. 

“Sorry. I was - I was looking for someone,” he says, sheepishly. “Are you okay?” 

She looks straight through him, and says, “Hello?” again. 

“Hello?” Carlos says, waving his hand in front of her face. She frowns, and takes a few steps to the side, peering around the back of the tree they’re standing in front of. 

“Where _are_ you?” 

“Um. Here?” 

“Where?” 

She doesn’t seem to be able to see him; Carlos hovers his hand in front of her mouth, and although her breath leaves vapour in the chill air, he can’t feel any heat. 

“Never mind. So...is this your dream too? Or are you just...in my dream?” 

She frowns, and lowers her stick. “No, I’m not _dreaming_ ,” she says, rolling her eyes with an insulted expression. “And I’m certainly not inside yourdream. Nobody who’s anybody dreams anymore. It’s like, who even _are_ you, if you still dream?” 

Something about her tone flicks a switch in Carlos’ brain. He follows her as she starts walking away. 

“Hey, I think I’ve seen you before. Don’t you work in the record store in Night Vale? Dark Flamingo Records, or something like that.” 

“Dark _Owl_ Records, oh my god, you are the most _embarrassing_ disembodied voice I’ve spoken to like, ever _._ ”

“Oh. Sorry. So, uh, why are you here? If you’re not dreaming, I mean.”

“This is where I get my favourite magazine ‘Future’ from,” she says, pausing at the base of a large redwood. She starts rolling her sleeves up, as if planning on climbing the tree, which is exactly what she proceeds to do. 

“What are you doing?” Carlos asks in alarm, as she hauls herself up into the first branch, tongue between her teeth. She rolls her eyes again.

“I told you, I’m getting the latest edition of _‘Future’._ Apparently, this edition’s featured article is about the Great Bovine Uprisings of the twenty sixth century. I’d say I’m excited to read it, but excitement was number two on the list of unfashionable emotions this year, so I’m just slightly less apathetic about it than I am about most other things.” 

“What was number one on the list?” Carlos asks, as she climbs higher and higher into the canopy, shaking dead leaves and bits of bark down onto his head. 

“Irrational nostalgia, so don’t, like, look through your high school year books or anything,” she calls down, nearly out of sight. 

“Oh! Wait!” Carlos shouts, suddenly remembering something he forgot to ask her. “Where are we?” 

“What do you mean, where are we?” her voice calls, distantly. “How do you not know where we are?” 

“This is sort of a recurring dream I keep having. You’re the only other person I’ve ever seen here before.” 

“A recurring dream?” Lauren’s voice says, and Carlos can actually hear the eye-roll in her voice. “Oh my god, I can’t believe you actually found something even more uncool than just normal dreaming.” 

“Please,” he begs, “I really need to know where we are! Please tell me.” 

“Are you going to give me anything in return?” 

“I - I don’t really have anything to give.”

“Okay, good, because trade economy is, like, the lamest thing ever.” 

Waking up is like a sharp punch in the gut. Carlos is jolted back into consciousness when he falls out of the bed, and slams onto the floor with an “Oof”. He lies there for a moment with his face pressed to the floorboards, Lauren’s reply still ringing in his ears like a gong, mingling with the image of the puppet Sheriff, whispering to him in the cells at Hidden Gorge. His brain feels like it’s on fire; nebulous theories and half-baked ideas are coalescing and forming into new shapes inside his head, and he searches frantically in his pockets for his notepad, but can’t find it. He scrambles up off the floor, gasping at the rush of blood to his head, and thunders down the stairs. He finds Josie in the kitchen, stirring an enormous vat of jam again. 

“Josie! Josie, I need your help,” he says, wringing his hands, half-aware that he has no idea what time it is, how long he slept for, or what he looks like right now. 

“Huh? What do you need help with?” Josie says, turning the heat down on the hob and peering at him through her glasses, one hand still stirring.

“I need you to help me remember something. When did people start going missing?”

Josie frowns, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “Well, let me think about that. The first few people went missing around...three months ago now? Yes, just over three months, I remember because Michael Sandero, he was one of the first to go, he was meant to come to an emergency City Council meeting about street cleaning day, and he never showed. Oh, and before that, there was a young couple who disappeared while they were having a picnic in the sand wastes.” 

“Where in the sand wastes?” 

“East side of town, if I remember right. Not far from the whispering forest. Why? You think they might have something to do with all this?” 

“I think they might have everything to do with it,” Carlos says breathlessly, already heading for the door. 

 

*** 

 

Time passes strangely, in the dark. Cecil is lying on his back on the rock floor of his cell, and has been counting the stripes in the sandstone on the ceiling for what feels like an eternity. He gets to seventy six, and loses track. He gets to one hundred and three, and loses track. He gets to three thousand, nine hundred and seventeen before he loses count, and then doubts that he actually got that far at all. 

Kevin comes back, three times. The first time, Cecil shuffles to the back of his cell, into the shadows, not because he thinks they’ll really not be able to see him, but because he doesn’t want them to see how afraid he is. Kevin surprises Cecil, however, not just because he doesn’t shred him into meat-ribbons on sight, but because when he arrives (flanked by three hooded figures, and particularly big ones too) he comes with a tray of food. 

“Hello, Cecil,” he says, crouching down outside the bars and watching intently as one of the hooded figures dumps the tray in front of Cecil and then retreats and locks the door again. “We bought you some food. You must be hungry.” 

Cecil looks at the tray, which is laden with meat, and bread, and more meat, and feels his stomach rumbling. He clears his throat, and looks away from the tray, mistrustful. 

“Come on, Cecil, I _know_ you’re hungry. I can hear your stomach grumbling from here.” 

Kevin cocks his head to the side, and gives him a smile which is probably meant to be friendly. “Just try a little, won’t you? I’d be rude not to.”

When Cecil responds only by shuffling a little further into the far corner of his cell, Kevin sighs, sitting on his haunches and looking at him through the bars with a sad, thoughtful expression. 

“Why don’t you trust me, Cecil?” 

Cecil snorts softly, and a frown passes over Kevin’s face. “Is it because of your niece? I thought you’d be _happy_ that we put her in the defective units cell. It’s not like she was going to be there forever. She was just there while our team was looking for another use for her. In all likelihood, she would have been promoted to the company recyclers, and her matter would have been redistributed with maximal efficiency. That’s a big honour!” 

Cecil’s jaw tightens painfully, and he’s tempted to throw the tray of food in Kevin’s awful, dripping face, but he manages to restrain himself. Just. 

“Taking into account the fact that you’re only alive because I still think killing you would be a waste, don’t you think that you should at least _consider_ my offer? Working for Strexcorp would be the best thing that would ever happen to you,” Kevin continues, brightly. 

“The Strexcorp team is like one, big family, and there’s a seat at the head of the table with your name on it, Cecil Palmer. Why won’t you take it?”

His last words sound slightly frustrated, and Cecil glances at his face to see a look of genuine and slightly irritated curiosity, as if he really is bewildered by Cecil’s resistance. Cecil considers telling him to go and throw himself under the drill; he considers taking him up on his offer and stabbing him somewhere soft at the first opportunity; he considers trying to choke himself to death with bread. Finding every option lacking, he settles for pushing the tray away with the tip of his shoe. Kevin sighs again, and straightens up, peering at him through the bars with pursed lips. 

“You’ll see, one day, Cecil. You’ll see,” he murmurs, the never-ending tunnels of his eyes boring into the side of Cecil’s head, willing him to look his way. Cecil keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the opposite wall. He listens to the sound of Kevin walking away with hatred boiling in his guts, and as soon as the door at the end of the corridor clanks shut, he picks up the tray of food and hurls it against the wall, where it bounces noisily, sending meat and bread flying everywhere. He buries his face in his hands, breathing heavily, and blinks back the angry, frightened tears welling up in his eyes. Eventually, he sighs, and reaches for a piece of bread, nibbling it reluctantly. He really is hungry. 

Later - he’s not sure how much later - the hooded figures return to bring Megan Wallaby to the defective units cell, still wearing the tattered remains of her fluffy pink dressing gown and white pajama shorts. Her left arm is a mangled, bloody mess; Cecil nearly gags at the sight of exposed bone in several places. Even so, it takes both of the hooded figures to wrestle her into the cell; she roars and kicks and head-buts, but even her brute strength isn’t enough against almost-angels. The hooded figures lock her cell and stalk away, one of them rubbing its shoulder where Megan had hit it and muttering complaints. Before she has even caught her breath, Megan starts whimpering, and pretty quickly she’s crying hard, her sobs loud in the confined space. Cecil comes towards the bars of his cell for the first time in hours, waving to her through the bars. 

“Don’t cry, Megan. It’s going to be alright.” 

She looks up sharply, and notices him for the first time. 

“Mr Palmer? What’s going on? Where are we?” She asks, voice thick with tears. 

“We’re in Hidden Gorge. Some people hijacked the Sheriff’s mind control network and they’re using it to make people dig for something. I’ve been saying for _years_ that the Sheriff’s office needed to improve its security. All they have is a sign which says ‘Mind Control Network: Please Do Not Abuse For Nefarious Purposes’. I said at the last City Council meeting, that I don’t think a lot of people know what nefarious means, and that they should just put a bunch of locks on the door, but I guess the City Council is more optimistic about peoples’ vocabularies than I am.” 

Megan giggles, and hiccups. She moves to wipe her nose on her sleeve, and winces, somehow having forgotten about her broken arm.

“That looks a little...sore,” Cecil says, eyeing the blood-soaked mess of her arm, which, on top of having exposed bone, is covered dust and sand. Megan nods, and she flexes the heavy, tattooed biceps on her wounded arm. Cecil tries not to think of what Kevin said, about defective units being _recycled._

“Yeah, it’s a bit sore,” she says nonchalantly. “A bunch of us got pushed in front of the drill. John Peters, you know, the farmer, he was in front of me-”

She cuts off with an audible gulp, and tears well up in her eyes again. “He got crushed. There was someone else too, a woman, I didn’t recognise her. She wasn’t dead, but she was pretty close to it. They put her in wheelbarrow and took her away.”

Cecil’s stomach is tying itself in knots. “What did she look like?” 

“I - I can’t really remember very well. She was youngish. I think she had dark hair.” 

Cecil’s horror must show strongly on his face, because Megan adds quickly, “I’m really not sure at all. My memory is really foggy, and it was really hard to see out there, with all the dust and everything. I don’t even remember how I got here. To Hidden Gorge, I mean.”

Megan’s thick, black eyebrows knit together in concentration.  “I remember walking across town at night...and...” 

Her eyes go wide all of a sudden, and she looks horrified. “Did I - did I punch Carlos the scientist in the face?” 

Cecil shrugs, grinning sheepishly. “Just a little.”  

Megan claps her hand to her mouth, her face turning pale. “Oh my god! Is he okay?” 

“Oh yeah, he was fine,” Cecil says, waving a hand in dismissal. “One of the angels helped patch him up.” 

Megan nods in relief, looking mortified. She blushes, suddenly looking shy. “Is - is he here as well?” 

Cecil shakes his head, smiling slightly. “Not anymore. He’s safe now, though.” 

Megan nods, looking relieved and also ever so slightly disappointed. “If you see him before I do, would you tell him that I’m really, really, really sorry, and that I didn’t mean it?” 

“He knows that. But yeah, I’ll tell him.” 

Cecil thinks back to that day in the desert, what seems like a million years ago, and even though he remembers strongly how frightened he had been, he still feels a pang of irrational nostalgia for a time when a horrifying death was, at least, a little bit less imminent than it is now. Out of nowhere, he thinks he hears a familiar, nasal voice saying: “Ugh, never ever talk to me again, Cecil.” He frowns, shaking his head, deciding that now isn’t really a good time to start hearing voices. 

“Hey, Mr Palmer, can I ask you something?” 

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Why are _you_ in here, and not outside helping with the drill? You don’t look hurt or anything.” 

“I came here with Carlos to save my niece Janice, but we got caught. One of the angels helped Janice escape, and then they came back for Carlos, and they were meant to come back for me, but I guess they got held up or something.” 

“Oh,” says Megan, sounding surprised. “Are you worried about him?” 

“A little. But not too much. I mean, he was with an _angel,”_ Cecil says, suppressing his anxiety for Megan’s sake. He doesn’t know why they haven’t come back for him yet, and he can’t think of any other explanation than something having gone horribly wrong, but then again, he just can’t imagine anything happening which Damson couldn’t fix. 

“You must really love him,” Megan says, sounding slightly wistful. Cecil smiles to himself. 

“How can you tell?” 

"Because you’re not angry that he didn’t come back.” 

*** 

It’s mid-afternoon by the time Carlos makes it to the Whispering Forest. Driving through town, he had been struck by the unnatural quiet. Windows and doors were barred tight. The kids getting out of school rushed home with their heads down. Someone had spray-painted the words ‘THE DUST IS TAKING US BACK’ on the huge, steel wall which rings the City Council building. He leaves his car in the scrublands, amidst the gorse and cigarette butts,and heads for the lush, dark pine forest, so out of place in the arid sand wastes. 

He swallows hard, peering into the darkness underneath the dense canopy. The ferns sway in a breeze which Carlos can’t feel, and for a moment, they seem to look like fingers, beckoning to him. He follows. 

The wave of deja vu which he feels when the trees engulf him is disorientating. The sound of dripping water, and the complete lack of wind; shafts of sunlight illuminating random patches of ground, and the purple sky just visible through the breaks in the canopy; the screech of a bird and the neon tree frogs, they’re all things he’s seen before. 

Also familiar is the breathy, lilting voice which is calling, quietly but insistently - _“Carlooooos.”_

He starts walking quickly towards the sound, worried that it might vanish again. The fallen tree; the low hanging branch with tree frogs clinging to it; the deer who spring away at the sight of him. Pinecones and dried up leaves crunch underneath his feet. He sees the breaks starting to appear in the trees faster than he ever remembers seeing them, and the rhythmic chanting starts echoing between the trees. The towering, mossy pines start thinning out, and he breaks through the trees into a large, circular clearing, which slopes gently downwards in the centre. What he sees there, his brain struggles to comprehend. 

There is a swirling, black vortex sitting in the centre of the clearing. The deep, alien chanting filling the clearing emanates from it. It reminds dimly Carlos of the opening to a mineshaft - or an open grave, but utterly bottomless. The sky above the clearing is a brilliant purple, and there are multiple suns in the sky. While he’s gaping, trying to reconcile this monstrous but also eerily beautiful vision with his understanding of the world, he suddenly hears that lilting voice calling his name again, but this time from directly next to him. What he sees is a tree, a tall, moss-covered pine tree, with drooping, verdant branches and a lone, six-eyed woodpecker perched one of its upper branches. He’s not sure how he knows that it was the tree who called his name - he just is. 

“Hello?” He says, uncertainly. The tree, although it doesn’t move, seems to somehow let out a breath it had been holding. 

_“Ohhhhh,”_ it whispers, drawing every word out to preternatural length _“Youuuu’rrrre fiiiinallllly heeeeere.”_

_"Wooooow, yooou haaaave amaaaaziiiingllly cleeeeeear skiiiiiiiin,”_ another tree whispers musingly, and another one hums in agreement, adding, _“Weee reeeeeallly respeeeect thaaaat youuuu keeeeep theeee greeey iin youuuur haaaair. It looooks veeery dignifiiiied.”_

“You’re the ones who’ve been calling me? You’ve been sending me those dreams?”

_“Yeeeeees,”_ the trees sigh in unison. _“Weeee thouught youuuu miiiight be aaaable to dooo somethiiiing abouuut the swiiiirrrliiing abyyyyyss.”_

“What? But why me?” 

_“Weeee liiiisteeen tooo youurrr boooyfrieeeend’s radioooo shooow,”_ one of them says, and Carlos feels colour rising in his cheeks. 

_“It’ssss ouurrr faaavouriiiite tiiiime of daaaay,”_ another one adds, enthusiastically. _“We heeeaaard that youuuu’re a sciiiientist, aaaaand thaaat youuu’re veeery braaaave and smaaart, soooo weeee’ve been tryyying tooo geeeet youuu toooo visiiiit.”_

“Because of - because of that?” Carlos says, pointing at the vortex. “What is it?” 

_“It appeaaared in theee niiiiight a feeewwww mooonthhss aaago, aaand terrriiible thiiings craaawleed ouut of it, thiiings wiiithouuut booodieees,”_ the pine trees whisper, sounding frightened. 

_“Theeeeyyy follooowed the smeeeell oooof otheeeer creeaaatuuures frrroooom theeeiiir reaaaalm, otheeer creeeeaaatures withouuut bodiiiies whooo aaarreee traaaapped heeeereee. Theeeyy foollooowed the smeeeeel of theeeiiir miseeeery,”_ the trees whisper, and every hair on the back of Carlos’ neck rises. 

  _“Theeee moonsteeeers liiiiiked it heeeere, sooo theeeey kiiilllled a maaaan aaand a womaaaan whooo weeeere haviiing a picniiiic iiiin theee saaaaand waaasteees-”_

_“Theeey haaaad potaaato salaaaaaad-”_

_“-aaand stoooole theeeiiir bodiiiies-”_

_“Aaand theeeiiir potaaaato salaaaad-”_

_“Aaaaand siiiince theee fiiiirst twoooo, thiiiiings haaaave beeeen pouuuriiing ouuut oooof theeee swiiiirliiing abyyyysssss neeeearly eveeeery niiiiight. Pleeeeeaaaseee, caaan yoouuu heeellp?”_

Carlos’ heart is pounding inside his chest, and he nods. “I think so. Listen, I’m going to go now, and I’ll be back, soon. But I need you to do something for me first.” 

 

* * *

 

Cecil is dreaming about a childhood which is not his own again. He is sitting at a piano in somebody’s house, looking down at the keys. His feet don’t quite reach the pedals, but that’s okay, he doesn’t need them for this piece. He has been practicing so much that he doesn’t need the sheet music either. A clock ticks somewhere close-by. Somebody clears their throat quietly. He savours the special moment of silence which comes before the music does, a moment which is a kind of music in its own right. There’s no other silence like it anywhere else on earth. He raises his hands to the shining ivory keys, and notices that he only has nine fingers; the pointer finger on his right hand is missing, right up to the knuckle. 

They are waiting. His fingers are hovering motionlessly over the silent keys. There are people waiting to hear him play. 

The moment of silence stretches on and on. The beautiful silence is gone; it’s uncomfortable and tense, now. It’s time to start playing, he tells himself, but his fingers refuse to move like they usually do. Someone sighs; someone else leaves the room quietly. You can play some scales to warm up first, he tells himself, you’re good at scales. His hands remain as still as though they don’t belong to him at all. His shirt is sticking to his back. Finally, someone mutters, “I knew she couldn’t do it,” and that is exactly what he needed. His fingers descend and the notes begin to flow like water from a fountain, his nine bony digits flying across the keys like birds for fifteen minutes, and he was wrong about the silence before the music being the best kind. The silence from his audience after he has finishedis by far the best one he’s ever heard. His father is weeping bitterly. He never meant to make anybody cry - 

" _Ceeeeciiil...”_

Carlos is standing in a pine forest, squinting and then raising his arm to shield his eyes from the shaft of sunlight which is currently blinding him. The air smells of rain and wet earth, and the canopy is dripping onto his head. He looks around for the source of the voice but doesn’t see anybody, apart from a deer which flees when it notices him. He tries to speak but finds himself unable. 

_“Ceeeeciiiiiil, he’s goiiing to coooome baaaack fooor youuuu. He promiseeees, okaaay?”_

Still unable to speak, Cecil just nods his head. His vision of the pine forest vanishes in a cloud of etherial smoke, which clears slowly, to reveal a rough, sandstone wall. Cecil sits up, disorientated, and groans quietly at the ache in his back and side from sleeping on the stone floor. There is a loud, rumbling sound which puts him in a state of alarm for a few seconds, before he realises that it’s just Megan Wallaby snoring. After that, it starts becoming oddly comforting, a persistent reminder that there’s somebody else there, sharing the darkness with him. 

The next time he wakes up, it’s to the screech of his cell door opening. He scrambles up off the cell floor, heat beating fast inside his chest, but doesn’t back away. Kevin stands in the doorway, smiling malevolently, four hooded figures standing silently behind him. His clothes look even more bloodstained than usual; every movement accompanied by a disgusting squelching sound, and there are three, deep scarlet gouges running across one of his cheeks which look like someone with exceptionally sharp nails pressed their fingertips into his cheekbone and _pulled._

“Hello, Cecil. What a coincidence, bumping into you here again,” Kevin says, and then laughs breezily at his own joke. He doesn’t seem to mind one bit that he’s the only one laughing.

“What do you want?” Cecil spits, and then bites his tongue, remembering his plan about not speaking. Kevin only smiles wider, and takes another step into the cell. 

“Lauren came and spoke to me again about our little conversations today. She still thinks that we should just kill you and make you into fertiliser for the company’s transdimensional orange orchards. She said that by coming down here, I was not using my time efficiently.” 

Kevin’s smile slips slightly, and something dark and frightening flits across his face, like the shadow of a bird of prey. He brushes the shoulder of his jacket with his palm a few times, as if swiping away an insect, and his palm comes away bright red. 

“I told her that her words were unnecessarily confrontational, and therefore deeply unprofessional. She didn’t find my criticism...constructive.” 

His cheek twitches, making the three, deep gouges there twist horribly.

“But no matter. Disputes in the workplace are inevitable, I suppose,” Kevin continues brightly. He pauses, and takes another step further into the cell. 

“She did make me think though. About our little visits. She made me realise that I _am_ wasting my time here, trying to tell you why working for Strexcorp would be the best thing to ever happen to you.” 

Cecil tries to preempt the punchline. He fails. Kevin glances over his shoulder at the hooded figures, and they swarm into the cell, and the space suddenly becomes extremely claustrophobic. Two of them grab Cecil’s arms, the other two take hold of his legs, and they drag him down, holding him spread eagled on the cold, stone ground. Cecil struggles. He twists and shouts and thrashes around. He can’t help it. 

“You were never going to listen to me telling you why this life is the best life. So I’m going to _show_ you, instead.” 

Kevin’s head appears upside-down in his eyeline, a dark, looming presence. His back is to the light, and so Cecil can’t see his face, but he can hear him say, softly, 

“Hold his head back, would you?” 

A hand grabs him by the hair and tips his chin up towards the ceiling, and Kevin’s head and shoulders come into view, upside-down, close enough that the pungent smell of iron filings and damp fabric fills Cecil’s nose, and he can see the thin sheen of blood on Kevin’s bared gums. 

“Perfect,” Kevin purrs, crouching down on his haunches over Cecil’s head. His dripping red hair flops in front of his eyes, and he flicks it away with a practiced little jerk of his neck while he’s digging for something in his jacket pocket. Cecil starts thrashing in terror when Kevin trills “Aha! Found them,” and pulls a pair of rusty office scissors out of his pocket. 

 


	11. Chapter 11

The yard is deserted when Carlos’ gets back to Josie’s house, completely out of breath. He pauses by the vegetable patch for a minute, hands on his knees, breathing heavily. He had to run here all the way from the whispering forest, because when he had stumbled out of the trees, blinded by the evening sun, he found that his car had transformed into a very pretty but completely useless silver birch. He notices that most of the plums have been cleared up, and are sitting in buckets by the side of the house, but the trees look desolate without them. He wipes his forehead, grimacing, and straightening up. The sound of hammering and raised voices drifts out from the back of the house. Carlos steels himself, reminding himself of what’s at stake, and makes his way round to the back yard. There, he finds the angels, or most of them anyway, gathered around a pile of wooden planks and what looks like the rudiments of a very crooked chicken coop. Two of them are holding a few planks upright while another one uses a hammer to fix them together, and the rest of them stand around, pointing and arguing.

“This isn’t right, it’s meant to be a trapezium, not a rhombus,” an onlooker with short, white antlers says irritably. 

“You’re a rhombus,” one of the angels holding the planks mutters under its breath, and its partner giggles, and then swears as the structure they’re propping up starts teetering to the side alarmingly. They turn around as one when they hear Carlos approaching, and their faces darken at the sight of him. The one holding the hammer takes a step forward threateningly, and Carlos holds his hands above his head, wondering in the back of his mind if this really is the most dangerous thing he has ever done, because it certainly feels that way. 

“My name is Ca-”

“You should go,” the angel with the hammer says, looking at him with an expression which Carlos usually associates with cockroaches, maggoty meat, and wet dog smell. 

“You’re right, I probably should go,” Carlos says, recklessly. “But I’m not going to. And that alone should tell you how important what I’ve got to say is.” 

Someone from the back of the group steps forwards, and Carlos recognises immediately the angel with the black and yellow jumper, its face twisted with hate. 

“Listen, human. The half-one might have found you and your nonsense endearing, but we don’t.”

The rest of the group seems to still at the mention of Damson. Two or three of them even uncomfortable, and Carlos notices the argyle angel, standing to the side with a handful of long nails, looking between him and the yellow and black angel with wide eyes. 

“What do you want?” Another one says, impatiently. “We’re busy.”

“I think I’ve found a way for you to get home,” Carlos says, slightly breathlessly. 

The angels stare at him blankly. A few of them glance at each-other with uncertain expressions, muttering lowly between themselves. The yellow and black angel takes a few steps towards him, and Carlos knows by instinct somehow that if he steps backwards now, or shows any sign of unsureness, he’s dead. He holds his ground as the angel advances, until the tips of their feet are only a foot apart, and he has to crane his neck to keep eye contact. The angel’s three eyes are trained on him, their multiple pupils holding his steadily. 

“We don’t fall for mind games any more, human,” it growls.

“It’s not a mind game. I found a vortex, hidden in the whispering forest, and it leads to a place where the creatures don’t have bodies. I can take you there right now, so you can see it for yourselves.”

He hears more muttering in the crowd, and, taking the yellow and black angel’s silence as a good sign, presses on. 

“Two beings from that place made the vortex by following your trail. They’ve been causing a lot of trouble for us, and the hooded figures have been helping them do it, but that’s not important right now. You can use their portal to get home,” he says, and then hesitates before adding, “You and the half-folk. You can get rid of your bodies. You can go home.” 

Total silence has descended on the assembled group, and the air pressure literally seems increase - Carlos’s ears pop painfully, and a high-pitched whine builds in his hearing. The yellow and black angel is staring at him with an inscrutable, tight-jawed expression. The change in air pressure continues to intensify. Carlos’s nose starts to bleed violently, and suddenly, he feels something deep inside of him slipping out of position, and he has the surreal and profoundly traumatising experience of being able to feel every single organ inside his body, pulsing and undulating like deep sea creatures. The angel’s emotionless, silver eyes hold him in thrall. Josie’s yard swims giddily out of focus as everything - his lungs, his stomach, his kidneys - start drawing towards his heart like iron filings to a magnet. He convulses once out of sheer horror, a second time because his insides are constricting around his heart like a snake around an antelope. He retches silently, heart palpitating erratically inside his ribcage, and tastes blood. 

“I think he’s telling the truth,” a voice says, suddenly and every head in the yard turns towards the argyle angel. The yellow and black angel is the last to look, releasing Carlos from its hypnotic stare, and Carlos wheezes, gulping thickly as he feels his organs sliding back into their places. He wipes his face on his lab coat sleeve, looking at the argyle angel, who is holding the yellow and black angel’s stare with a defiant expression. 

“We should at least check,” it says. “Just in case.”

A few of the others make noises of agreement. 

“And if it’s a trap? What then?” The black and yellow angel asks, and a hint of genuine fear slips into its tone. The argyle angel shrugs, glancing at Carlos with a blank expression.

“Then we kill him, and come back and finish the chicken coop.” 

*** 

_“Heeeeeeey, guuuuys?”_

_“Yeeeeaaah?”_

_“Whaaaat aaaare weeee goooiiiing toooo dooo iiiif Caaaarloooos caaaaan’t dooo aaaanyyythiiing abouut theee swiiiirliiing abyyyysssss?”_

_“Weeee’lll proooobably juuuuust diiieeee, riiiight? Eveeeentuuuallly somethiiiing wiiiiill proooobaaably coooome ouuut ooof iiiit whiiiich wiiiiiill destrooooy theeee whoooole woooorld.......”_

_“Awwwwww cooome oooon guuuuys, doooon’t beeee liiiike thaaat, theeee whoooole reeeaaason weee chooooose hiiiim waaas becauuuse heeeee’s a sciiiieeentiiist, and sciiiientiiiiists aaaaaare aaaalwaaaays fiiiine!”_

_“Weeeellll, heeee ceeertaaaaiiinly iiiiiis fiiiiiine, I meeeaaaan, wheeeen heee waaaas heeeeree befoooore iiiit waaaas like, hooooweee, soooomebooody cuuuuutt meeee a sliiiiice oooof thaaaat caaaake....”_

_“Ooooohhhh myyyy gooood, riiiiiiiight?”_

_“Uuuuugghhh, youuu twoooo are totallllllly grooooooossss.....”_

_“Ohhhh cooomeee ooooon, captaaaiiin hiiiiigh hooooorse, liiiike youuuu weeeern’t thinkiiiing iiiiiit tooo....”_

_“Waaaas nooooot!”_

_“Waaaas toooo!”_

_“Ohhh, thaaaat’s reaaaaal matuuuure, whaaat aaare youuu, a saaaapliiiing?”_

 

The air at the edge of the clearing starts warping like a heat-illusion, and the pines wail in surprise and fear as angels start materialising between the trees, trampling on the ferns with their big boots and causing a cloud of screeching birds to fly out of their perches in the canopy. An angel with stormy purple-grey wings and a badly fitting yellow and black jumper is the last to materialise, with a ruffled-looking Carlos the scientist. The angels gather around the vortex, their wings making a great rustling as a spectrum of emotions flit across their three-eyed faces - disbelief, elation, wildness. 

“You feel that?” One of them whispers to its companion, a stocky, dove-winged angel with flowing, yellow hair. It takes a step towards the vortex, and crouches down next to it, closing its eyes and breathing in deeply, as if smelling something delicious. 

The angel, without opening its eyes, tips head first into the vortex, and vanishes like a stone thrown into a well. Nobody breathes. The entire forest falls silent, every tree pausing mid-whisper to stare at the swirling, black abyss.  

The vortex shivers, and then something bright and blinding shoots out of it, spinning crazily through the air for a few brief moments with a jubilant fire-cracker sound, before plunging back into the vortex. The angels start to rejoice. They laugh and do handstands and raise their heads to the violet sky to _howl,_ a piercing, musical sound which Carlos is somehow certain he’s the first human to ever hear, and the last, too. 

“Thank you,” one of them says to him, tears which look like mercury pouring down its immaculate face. “ _Satchah-leth,”_ it murmurs, and kisses his forehead, leaving the skin tingling. The word rumbles around the group of angels, being repeated again and again, and Carlos wants to ask what it means, but there are more important things on his mind. 

“The half-folk have Cecil. And the rest of the town, too.” 

The black and yellow angel steps forward, and Carlos, still slightly traumatised, takes a reflexive step backwards. 

“Where?” The angel asks, lowly.

“Hidden Gorge,” he says breathily, and the angel nods, casting a glance around at the others. For a moment, Carlos is gripped by the panicked certainty that they’ll all jump straight into the vortex and never come back, but then the yellow and black angel reaches its palms out towards him. 

“We’re leaving this place tonight,” it says, with a look of calm determination, “And we ain’t leaving nothing behind.” 

 

***

 

Kevin steps out of the dark, damp cell, wiping his hands on his trousers as though that will somehow clean them. The four hooded figures step out of the cell after him, stooping to get past the bars and then locking it behind them. Kevin sighs contentedly, and starts walking back towards the door, glancing to the side to check on the defective units cell. Megan Wallaby is sitting in the far corner with her knees pressed to her chest, and her hands clamped tightly over her ears. Her face is tearstained and blotchy, and she looks haunted. Kevin walks on, his shoes clicking against the sandstone floor, and opens the creaking steel door, leaving the handle dripping. He’s already half-way down the corridor when he realises that the hooded figures aren’t following him. 

“Guys? Everything okay?” He asks buoyantly, walking back. The hooded figures are still standing in the poorly lit cell block, motionlessly. 

One of them mutters, “Can’t be,” and one of the others replies, “But I can _feel_ them, they’re here-” 

The hooded figure cuts off suddenly, and all four of them look sharply at Kevin, who is standing in the doorway. 

“What’s going on, fellas?” He says, with a slightly nervous laugh. “Why are you looking at me like that?” 

“They ain’t looking at you,” a deep, echoing voice says from far above and right behind him. Kevin swivels around to see a multitude of towering, effulgent angels filling the corridor. An angel wearing a black and yellow jumper reaches out slowly, and pinches the very tip of Kevin’s nose with its slender, diaphanous fingers. 

“Got your nose,” it says. 

“Oh, I used to love this game!” Kevin enthuses, peering up at the angel with a broad, curious smile. 

The yellow and black angel smiles back, and then pulls. Kevin screams a scream which makes Megan Wallaby start crying again, as his nose comes away from his face with a wet cracking sound, leaving a gaping black hole to match his eyes. It starts pouring blood onto his already saturated shirt. The yellow and black angel drops the lump of flesh and cartilage on the floor carelessly, and then steps aside to let Carlos go through the doorway. He barely affords Kevin a passing glance as he runs to the darkened cell where Cecil last was, holding a huge ring of keys. Behind him, the hooded figures ignore Kevin’s howls for to them for do something, their invisible gazes fixed on the other angels. One angel steps forward, a lanky, narrow faced angel with robin’s egg blue wings.

“We’re going home,” it murmurs, simply. The hooded figures regard them for a few moments more, and then slowly, one of them reaches back and pulls down its hood, revealing charcoal skin, three, misty silver eyes, and two jagged stumps on the top of its head. 

“Truly?” It asks, voice soft. The angels nod, all of them. The nearly-angel turns to its companions, and after a second of hesitation, they drop their hoods too, revealing cautious, hopeful faces, deer-like noses twitching in the musty air. 

Meanwhile, Carlos finally manages to find the right key to the cell, and the door squeals hair-raisingly as he pulls it open. The air inside smells of damp, and so strongly of blood that Carlos has to hold his sleeve in front of his mouth and nose. It’s hard to see, inside, but Carlos thinks he can make out a figure in the corner, prostrate on the floor. He takes a few steps towards it, unsurely, and then glances over his shoulder as the yellow and black angel ducks inside the cell, illuminating it with its radiant sundisk. Carlos looks back at the motionless figure lying on the floor in the corner of the cell, and recoils. He takes an unsteady step backwards, bile rising in his throat, and a second later is vomiting in the corner. The image of Cecil’s bloodslick face, and the pulpy, gaping holes where his eyes used to be, is seared onto his memory like a cattle-brand. He retches again and again, his body wracked by dry-leaving, until someone presses a hand onto his back, and his stomach de-constricts. 

“Just breathe,” the argyle angel urges him. “He’s going to be fine.” 

“He’s dead, I know it, he’s dead-” 

“He’s not dead, he’s just unconscious,” the angel says, and Carlos pushes away from the wall, his brow shining with sweat. 

“Look,” the angel urges him. 

“I can’t.” 

“No, really, _look-”_

Carlos swallows hard, his mouth tasting foul, and glances over at Cecil again. The yellow and black angel has propped his limp body up against the wall, and is gently cleaning his face with its sleeves. Cecil starts stirring, and makes a raw, agonised sound which doesn’t even remotely resemble language. Carlos starts forward, but the argyle angel holds him back, shaking its head. 

“My eyes,” Cecil says in a broken voice, hands lifting weakly, “My eyes.” 

The angel makes a shushing sound, muttering, “Hold on for just one more minute.”

The angel puts its long face in its hands, and breathes out in a one, unhurried gust of cool and slightly fragrant air. With its back to Carlos, it lifts its face, and then presses its many-fingered hands to the mess of Cecil’s face. There is a quiet, sizzling sound for a few seconds, and the smell of blood in the room diminishes ever so slightly. When the angel takes its hands away, a pair of silvery, multiple-pupilled eyes are sitting in Cecil’s face, and another one sits on his forehead, all blinking in unison. Cecil is gasping like a beached sea creature, one hand clutching his chest, the other roaming around his face, brain struggling to keep up with the change. His new eyes settle on Carlos, pupils expanding and contracting apparently uncontrollably. 

“Car-”

Cecil has the breath knocked out of him before he can finish his sentence. Carlos throws his arms around him, and is holding on like a drowning person to a piece of driftwood.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” he chants, voice muffled in the wet fabric at Cecil’s neck. Cecil ignores the pain which permeates his entire body, especially his forehead, with the unfamiliar feeling of a new eye, and he holds on to Carlos for dear life. 

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault. What _happened?”_  

Carlos pulls back slightly, glancing at the yellow and black angel with a mixed expression. 

“I’ll tell you later,” he mutters, and then says, “I don’t know how to thank you,” to the yellow and black angel, whose face is now completely devoid of eyes or sockets. 

The angel rubs the back of its head, looking bashful, and shrugs. “It’s not like I’ll be needing them anymore.” 

“What? Why?” Cecil asks. He tries to stand up, and stumbles slightly, so Carlos helps him to his feet. 

“It’s kind of a long story,” Carlos says, helping Cecil out of the cell. Cecil’s new eyes widen when they step into the corridor, and see two hooded figures, now without their hoods, talking quietly to a handful of angels. The defective units cell is empty, the door wide open. They can distantly hear raised voices and banging noises, and then another hooded figure appears in the doorway, looking breathless and exhilarated. 

“We had some problems with the mind control network, but it’s off now,” the nearly-angel says, short dark hair falling in curls across its brow. “The others have started taking people back to the town. And the other monster, the one calling itself Lauren, it tried to run but they caught it, way out in the sand wastes. It won’t be running again.” 

“Good,” the yellow and black angel says, vehemently. 

 

It takes the whole night for the angels ferry most of the population of Night Vale back to the town. People sit around the silent drill on upturned buckets with blankets around their shoulders, taking in low voices. Some people sleep; Teddy Williams, coach Mujaheed, Michael Sandero and Carlos’ colleague Rosa lie in a huge, snoring pile in the dust. Carlos spots Hitomi, looking bruised but not badly hurt, sleeping with her head on someone’s lap. He nearly goes and wakes her up, but Cecil says, “No, let her sleep.”

“I still don’t get it,” Leann Hart gripes, staring up at the enormous yellow drill. “ _What_ were they digging for again?” 

“I heard it was blood diamonds,” someone says knowledgeably. 

“Marcus Vanston said they were building a bathhouse. Apparently there’s a lot of money in bathhouses these days, and Marcus would know,” John Peters says firmly, and everyone around him nods in agreement. 

“Hey, anyone have any food?” Telly the barber asks, looking around at the blank faces of his fellow townspeople. “I could eat an alligator. No really, I would _love_ an alligator right now. Think we’re anywhere near the swamps?” 

The angels have some trouble dealing with two or three people who are insisting slightly hysterically that ‘angels don’t exist and teleportation is super illegal’. In the end, that group walks all the way back to the town through the midnight desert, led by one of the nearly-angels, who shrugs, muttering, “They’ll get lost otherwise. And I guess we did kind of enslave them.” 

 

***

 

Thin clouds drift across the gradually lightening purple sky peeking through the canopy of the whispering forest. The angels and nearly-angels are gathering at the edge of the clearing, more of them appearing every few minutes. Carlos and Cecil sit on a tree stump nearby, talking quietly.

“How are your new eyes?” Carlos asks. He still hasn’t fully got used to them, with their silver sheen and their two pupils, or the third one blinking at him innocently out of Cecil’s forehead. 

“They’re really cool,” Cecil says enthusiastically, blinking in syncopation just because he can. “I don’t need glasses anymore, obviously. And I can see, like, a bazillion new colours that I don’t even have names for. And also I think I can, like, see sound.” 

“Really? What does it look like?” Carlos says curiously, already digging his notepad and pen out of his labcoat pocket. Cecil rolls his eyes. All three of them. 

“You’ll have plenty of time to poke at me with a magnifying glass later, okay?” His face falls slightly, focussed on something over Carlos’s shoulder. “Look.” 

Three angels have appeared at the edge of the clearing, pushing the low-hanging branches out of their faces and muttering apologies to the pine trees. One of them is holding the bloodstone urn from Josie’s hallway under its arm, and the other two are bearing Damson’s body between them, holding the angel’s long arms over their shoulders and dragging its feet along the forest floor. The gaping hole in the angel’s belly has been stuffed with cloth, but there’s not much they can do about the shattered remnants of the sundisk floating at the back of its head, or the deep wound at its neck where the rope bit in. Mercy the sloth is peering out of Damson’s dungaree pocket, blinking sleepily. Carlos looks away, but Cecil watches as the angels set Damson’s body down, with a thoughtful expression on his face. 

“That morning while you were in Heaven, Damson said to that their souls are attached to their bodies like colour to paint. Even one which burnt itself to death was still attached to the ashes. So maybe Damson’s still in there, somewhere,” he murmurs. “Maybe, when they all go through the vortex, Damson will get set free too.” 

“Maybe,” Carlos says, slightly skeptically. “I guess we’ll never know. But I hope you’re right.” 

“Now wait just a darn minute!” A familiar voice says, and Cecil and Carlos turn around to see Old Woman Josie marching through the trees with a thunderous expression. The hooded figures all back away, leaving the angels standing in a loose huddle as Josie storms towards them.

“What do you think you’re doing, trying to leave without saying goodbye?” 

“We did say goodbye,” one of the angels says, awkwardly. Josie waves around a crumpled piece of paper in her fist, and puts her hands on her hips.

“A _note?_ All this time we’ve been living together, and alls I get is a half-finished chicken-coop and a note, ‘thanks for the snacks and the jumpers and everything, see you later, love Erika’?”  

The angels glance at each other, looking guilty. Someone mutters, “I knew we should have got flowers, I _said_ it wouldn’t be overkill.” 

“Aww, we’re sorry Josie,” one of the angels says, bashfully. “We’re not good at goodbyes.” 

“Yeah, well, you ain’t great at building chicken coops either,” Josie grumbles, but the corners of her mouth are crooking upwards. “Now you get your lanky divine backsides down here and give me a hug.” 

Cecil and Carlos watch as the angels start flocking around Josie, hugging the tiny old lady with their long, sinewy arms. 

“Are you sure you’ll be alright, out here on your own?” One of them asks, looking at her with concern. 

“Oh, sure, I’ll be fine, I’m tough as mutton,” Josie says, flapping her hands dismissively. 

“You can call us any time you want,” another one says, eagerly. “If any lightbulbs need changing, or if you want help with the plum trees when summer comes back around.” 

“We’ll be watching over you, Lejosephine,” another one says, and the rest of them nod solemnly. Josie takes one look at their long, eager faces, and bursts into floods of tears, her thick glasses steaming up rapidly. 

Meanwhile, the remaining half-angels have rematerialised, carrying two bloodstained figures with them. Lauren’s dark suit is covered in sand and is badly ripped, and her face is wild. Her blood-stained teeth snap audibly - what teeth she has left, at least. 

 “We’ll be back! We’ll find a way back and when we do, the desert is going to _burn_ -” 

Her tirade cuts off with a choking sound as one of the hooded figures puts her in a headlock. Kevin is calmer; his face is a bloody wreck, but he looks _sad_ more than anything else, not struggling against the hooded figure at all. The endless tunnels of his eyes are fixed on Cecil and Carlos. 

“We could have been so much more,” he whispers, forlornly. “This whole place could have been so much more.” 

The half-angels give Cecil and Carlos a nod, and then leap into the vortex, dragging a howling Lauren and a silent Kevin along them. One of Lauren’s skeletal hands holds onto the edge of the vortex for a few, long seconds, her fingers elongating horribly, before she gets sucked into the swirling blackness and disappears. One of the angels pulls open the screaming blood urn, which is vibrating violently, and pours the ashes into the swirling abyss. One by one, the hooded figures start jumping to the vortex. Some of them shout in joy as they go; most of them are silent. Josie, sniffing loudly and wiping her eyes on the corner of one of her sleeves, turns away as the angels start following them. The argyle angel comes forward, but it hesitates on the lip of the vortex, staring down into the abyss with an unnerved expression. One of the nearly-angels comes and stands next to them, and they regard each other with soft, unreadable expressions for a few moments, before leaping into the vortex hand in many-fingered hand. 

The yellow and black angel approaches the vortex, carrying Damson’s body over its shoulder as if it weighed nothing at all. 

“Wait!” Cecil says, standing up. “I never thanked you for helping me.” 

The yellow and black angel nods slowly, and although its face is eyeless, and its thick-lipped mouth remains a flat line, it seems to both of them that the angel is smiling ever so slightly. “Don’t thank me. You are _satchah-leth.”_

“What’s that?” 

The angel doesn’t reply. It goes to stand on the edge of the vortex with its back to them, staring into the swirling blackness, wood-pigeon wings spread slightly. It carefully tips Damson’s body off its shoulders, and then peers at Mercy the sloth, who is still sitting in the pocket of the dead angel’s dungarees. 

“Are you sure about this?” It asks. Mercy says and does nothing, just looks up at the yellow and black angel with her old brown eyes, and the angel shrugs. 

“Okay. I guess it’s up to you.” 

The yellow and black angel pushes Damson’s body, with Mercy sitting peacefully in the pocket, headfirst into the vortex, where it vanishes without a trace. The angel pauses on the lip of the vortex, one booted foot hovering over the darkness.

“ _Satchah-leth_ means ‘that which destroys’,” the angel says, softly. “Thank you. For destroying what was.” 

Without turning back, the angel steps into the vortex, and the swirling blackness swallows it whole. A few moments later, the vortex starts contracting rapidly, the low chanting growing fainter and fainter, until it vanishes completely with a popping sound. The clearing falls silent, apart the whisperings of the pine trees, and Josie’s occasional sniffling. 

“Come on,” Cecil says quietly, taking Carlos’s hand and leading them back into the trees. “I want to go home.” 

 

* * *

 

Carlos probably shouldn’t be surprised at how quickly things return to normal in Night Vale, but still, he is. Walking down a busy street just a few days after two thirds of the population were freed from slavery and transported back to the town by angels, all he sees is people getting on with their lives with blithe cheerfulness. Two men are standing by a stall full of bowling balls which have been sloppily pained lime green, with a sign reading **‘FRESH WATERMELON FOR SALE’.** A bunch of kids wearing balaclavas screech down the street in someone’s daddy’s muscle car; the Apache tracker is performing a noisy rain dance outside the antiques shop, drawing looks of disgust from passersby. The only indicator that anything happened at all is the number of arms in slings, cuts and bruises on people’s faces, limps in their gaits. 

Silently cataloging the  number of injuries, Carlos wonders, briefly, how many crises this town has seen, and then forgotten by the next week. They know already that there’s something which draws people to this desert, but at that moment, Carlos wonders what it is that makes people stay, and then he rounds the corner and sees the radio station, with its looming tower and big friendly sign, NIGHT VALE COMMUNITY RADIO STATION - THE RAPIDLY PALPITATING HEART OF OUR COMMUNITY, and he answers his own question.

When he gets to Cecil’s studio door, the ‘on air’ sign is flashing neon red above the door, so he stands around awkwardly outside until Hitomi - who is sporting a seriously impressive black eye - pops her head around the corner of a different door. 

“Hey, Carlos, whatcha doing?” 

“Oh, hi Hitomi. Uh, I just came to talk to Cecil about something.” 

“Okay, well, he’s on the air right now, but you can come hang out in the booth if you want?” 

“Sure, thank you.” 

Hitomi disappears back inside, and Carlos follows, finding her sitting in an office chair in front of a panel of sliders, and a large window looking in on the studio. Cecil has his head down, simultaneously reading from a sheet of paper on the desk, and flicking gummy bears at his tattoos, which dart around excitedly in the air above his head. His headphones are holding his hair away from his face, and also out of the way of the brand new eye sitting in his forehead. 

“He won’t tell me why his eyes are different,” Hitomi says, suddenly. Carlos glances at her, and her profile is serious, and slightly melancholy. “I asked him a few times, and he brushed me off.” 

She turns towards him with a pointed look. “I know that they’re angel eyes, Carlos. I’ve seen an angel before. One gave me a ride home a few days ago.” 

Carlos regards Hitomi’s pale, heart-shaped face for a moment, and he wonders privately where it was that _she_ came from, whether she was born here or if she made Night Vale her home purely by accident, like he did. He looks away. 

“Sometimes, the most important stories are the ones we choose not to tell,” he says quietly. He can feel Hitomi searching his face for something else, but he keeps his eyes fixed on the glass. As if sensing someone looking at him, Cecil glances up at the booth, and his eyebrows rise up in surprise. He gives Carlos a warm smile, and a small wave, and then has to jump back into a report about the rosebushes which started growing overnight in Old Woman Josie’s house, and were flowering by the morning. He signs off not long after that, telling his listeners to stay tuned next for ‘an absolute and all-consuming certainty that there is something profoundly wrong with your life, your body, and your choice of home furnishings’. Hitomi steps out of the booth, muttering something about coffee and Khoshekh, and Cecil steps in after her, closing the door behind him. 

“Well, this is a nice surprise,” he says, coming in for a hug. “Is everything okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine,” Carlos says, but Cecil doesn’t look completely convinced.

“Are you sure? You look kind of agitated.” 

Carlos realises that he’s right, and he runs a hand through his hair, trying to get his inchoate thoughts in order, but they keep shifting and colliding with each other like clothes in a washing machine. 

“I was just-” he starts, gesturing broadly with his hands, “While I was walking through town to get here, I was looking at all the people just doing all their usual things, and it got me thinking. I was thinking about what the town would look like if Strexcorp had actually managed to dig out the slumbering enigma.” 

Cecil leans back against the desk, nodding encouragingly, and Carlos presses on. 

“And I thought, well, it would probably be emptier. I think a lot of people would just leave, if whatever magnetism it was that drew them here in the first place went away. And then I started wondering if _I_ would have left.” 

Carlos cuts off, his throat suddenly dry, and an unpleasantly familiar sense of rising panic starts swelling high up in his chest. He swallows hard, and pushes it back down. Cecil is looking at him with a curious but guarded expression, his arms folded across his chest. 

“It made me realise,” he says, and then has to clear his throat when his voice cracks, “It made me realise that I’m not sure why I came to Night Vale. I’m actually not even sure how I got here at all. But I am sure why I stayed. I stayed because of you. And I’m going to keep staying. Also because of you,” he finishes, slightly lamely. He’s saved from having to say anything else by Cecil pushing himself off the desk, and capturing his stupid mouth in a kiss. 

“Sorry it took me so long to say,” Carlos says breathlessly when they break apart for air. Cecil shrugs, carding his fingers through Carlos’s hair, and looking at him with a soft, and slightly smug smile. This close up, Carlos can see the double-pupils of his eyes aren’t actually black, but a deep, rich purple which reminds him of deadly nightshade. 

“You got there in the end.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How it’s been writing this fic can be summed up pretty perfectly in the words of my personal hero Malcolm Tucker - ‘like the Shawshank Redemption, but with more tunneling through shit and no fucking redemption’. 
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> Thanks for reading, any comments and kudos are really appreciated xoxo


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